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As the crucial support component of the propeller power system, the reliability of the operation of submersible pumps is influenced by the lubrication performance of water-lubricated thrust bearings. When the water-lubricated thrust bearings are under start-stop or heavy load conditions, the effect of surface morphology is crucial as the mixed lubrication regime is encountered. This paper aims to develop one mixed lubrication model for the water-lubricated thrust bearings to predict the effects of surface skewness, kurtosis and roughness orientation on the loading carrying capacity and tribological behavior.

This paper developed one improved mixed lubrication model specifically for the water-lubricated thrust bearing system. In this model, the hydrodynamic model was improved by using the height of the rough surface and its probability density function, combined with the average flow model. The asperity contact model was improved by using the equation for the Pearson system of frequency curves to characterize the non-Gaussian aspect of surface roughness distribution.

According to the results, negative skewness, large kurtosis and lateral surface pattern can improve the tribological performance of water-lubricated thrust bearings. Optimizing the surface morphology is a reasonable design method that can improve the performance of water-lubricated thrust bearings.

In this paper, one mixed lubrication model specifically for the water-lubricated thrust bearing with the effect of surface roughness into consideration was developed. Based on the developed model, the effect of surface morphology on tribological behavior can be evaluated.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2023-0247/

The purpose of this paper is to verify the effectiveness of the proposed transient mixed lubrication and wear coupling model [mixed lubrication and wear (MLW) coupling model] under water lubricated conditions by comparing with the experimental results.

Water lubricated bearings are the key parts of the transmission system of an underwater vehicle and some surface ships. In this study, the friction and wear behaviors of rubber, nylon and polyether ether ketone (PEEK) samples with stainless steel underwater lubrication were compared by using ring-block contact structure on multifunctional friction and wear test bench-5000 friction and wear tester.

The results show that the transient wear depth and wear amount of PEEK, nylon and rubber samples under water lubrication are in good agreement with the calculated results of the theoretical model, which verifies the rationality and scientific nature of the MLW coupling model. Thus, the numerical model is applicable for the wear prediction of the journal bearing under water-lubricated conditions. Furthermore, numerical and experimental results reveal that the anti-wear performance among three water-lubricated materials can be ranked by: PEEK > nylon > rubber.

It is expected that this study can provide more information for experimental and numerical research of water-lubricated bearings under water-lubricated conditions.

The hydrodynamic characteristics of liquid film for bearings, especially water-lubricated bearings with a large length-to-diameter ratio, affect the dynamics behavior of rotor bearing systems. The purpose of this study is to carry out theoretical analysis and experiments to determine the hydrodynamic characteristics of water-lubricated journal bearings.

The finite difference method is adopted for the simulation of the characteristics of water-lubricated bearings. The comparison results between water-lubricated bearings with and without grooves, as well as with and without the consideration of the effects of rubber deformation, are presented. The test bearings, test bench, and monitoring system, especially the force exciter for the bearing experiment, are presented. Dynamic coefficient identification verification experiments were performed in different working situations. The obtained results include the calibration of magnetic force, two kinds of excitation, vibration data of the rotor system and dynamic coefficients.

The theoretical results demonstrate that the hydrodynamic effect was obvious when the speed was increased and that the water film had improved capability at a working speed of 1800 rpm. The identification results reveal the lubrication situation of the test bearing under low-speed and high-load conditions. Moreover, it was found that the liquid film was not continuous at low speeds.

The theoretical results can lead to the enhancement of the design level of water-lubricated rubber journal bearings with a large aspect ratio. The experimental results can lead to the improvement of the dynamic behavior design of rotor systems supported using water-lubricated bearings with a large length-to-diameter ratio.

The tribological behavior, i.e. friction coefficient and wear rate, and vibration characteristics of the water-lubricated bearing was investigated. The water-lubricated bearing is made of three different materials, i.e. polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK), polyimide (PI) and nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR).

The tribological behavior was investigated experimentally on a specially designed test rig. Three vibration sensors were used to record the vibration of the bearing.

The results indicated that the variation of friction coefficient with rotation speed agrees well with the trend of Stribeck curve. The tested friction coefficient of rubber bearing is higher than that of the other two bearings whether it is in the state of mixed-lubrication or hydrodynamic lubrication, and which causing a larger wear rate in rubber bearing. The PEEK bearing exhibits the best tribological properties due to it has smaller friction coefficient and wear rate. However, it can be found that the rubber bearing gives the minimum vibration acceleration, which means that the rubber bearing has the most potential to improve the stability of water-lubricated bearing rotor system.

In this study, a group of experiment studies conducted on a specially designed test rig. The comprehensive performance, including friction coefficient, vibration acceleration and wear rate, of water-lubricated bearing with three different materials, i.e. PEEK, PI and NBR, was compared systematically. The experiment research may offer a reference for the selection of material in water-lubricated bearing in specific operating conditions.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-10-2019-0447/

The purpose of this paper is to improve hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity of a water-lubricated journal bearing by a new bush structure. Water-lubricated bearing is becoming more and more popular since it is environmentally friendly and saves energy. However, contrary to oil and grease-lubricated bearings, water-lubricated bearing is limited in many situations due to its low hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity.

The present article proposes a new bearing bush, with a transition-arc structure, which is favorable for increasing hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity. Hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity was calculated by means of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3-D CFD) analysis. Several variants of a journal bearing with a transition-arc structure of different dimensions are analyzed, while the radial clearance of the bearing, eccentricity ratio and the velocity of the journal remain unchanged.

The results show that obvious changes are found in hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity of a water-lubricated journal bearing. For different width over diameter (L/D) bearing ratios, the relationship between hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity and the magnitude of the transition-arc structure dimension is researched.

The research presented here leads to a design reference guideline that could be used by the designer engineer to design smart journal bearings for improving the hydrodynamic load-carrying capacity.

Water lubrication is significant for its environmental friendliness. Composite journal bearing is liable to deform for the huge pressure of water film. This paper aims to study the influence of elastic deformation on how lubrication functions in water-lubricated journal bearings and to provide references for designing composite journal bearings.

The combination of computational fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction is adopted in this paper to study the lubrication performance of water-lubricated compliant journal bearings. The influences of elasticity modulus and Poisson’s ratio on load-carrying capacity and elastic deformation are studied for different rotational speeds. Predictions in this work are compared with the published experimental results, and the present work agrees well with the experimental results.

A reference whether elastic deformation should be considered for composite journal bearings is proposed under different working conditions. Besides, a reference to determine water-lubricated plain journal bearings dimensions under different loads and rotational speeds is developed with the effect of both elastic deformation and cavitation being accounted.

The present research provides references as to whether elastic deformation should be considered in operation and to determine compliant journal bearings’ dimensions in the design process.

The well-operating condition of journal bearing is the assurance to keep superior performance of water-lubricated twin-screw compressor. To design the journal bearing more reasonably for this type of compressor, this paper aims to study the effects of rotating speed and design parameters on bearing characteristics, considering surface roughness and bending deformation of the shaft at the same time.

The average Reynolds equation considering the effect of surface roughness is adopted and solved by finite difference method and successive over-relaxation method to calculate pressure distribution with real bearing shapes and boundary conditions. The bending deformation of the shaft is calculated using simply supported beam model of variable cross-section.

The dynamic lubrication characteristics of four water-lubricated journal bearings in twin-screw air compressor are calculated and analyzed. In addition, the static characteristics of journal bearing including friction coefficient, film thickness ratio distribution and water film pressure distribution are calculated numerically with different rotating speed and design parameters. Moreover, some design principles of water-lubricated bearing for twin-screw compressor are put forward.

The lubrication characteristics of the water-lubricated journal bearing in twin-screw air compressor are calculated considering surface roughness and bending deformation of the shaft at the same time. The paper’s results may provide design guidelines for journal bearing in this kind of twin-screw compressor.

This paper aims to establish the mathematical models for the water-lubricated thrust bearing with groove texture considering turbulence and cavitation and numerically analyze the influence of rotary speed, texture depth, groove number and groove width on the static performance of the bearing.

The turbulent Reynolds equation and the Jakobsson–Floberg–Olsson cavitation model are adopted for the analysis. The Payvar–Salant algorithm and Finite difference schemes are used to discretize the governing equations. To illustrate the influence of turbulence, the performance of the bearing predicted by the turbulent and laminar models are compared.

According to the results, the load capacity and the friction force calculated by the turbulent model are greater than those obtained by laminar model, and the deviation between them gradually increases with the increased rotary speed. So, the turbulent effect should be fully considered for high-speed water-lubricated bearing with surface texture. There exists a peak value for the load capacity of the water-lubricated thrust bearing in respect to the texture depth, the number of grooves and the groove width ratio, while the friction force varies slowly with those parameters. Well-designed groove texture can improve the performance of the water-lubricated thrust bearing.

This paper proposes a mathematical model considering turbulent and cavitation effect for water-lubricated thrust bearing with surface texture. This model can be complementary to conventional laminar model which is used to analyze the performance of textured bearing at low rotary speed.

In this study, the dynamic characteristics of the water-lubricated rubber bearing considering asperity contact are numerically studied, including water-film stiffness and damping coefficients and plastic-elastic contact stiffness coefficient.

The Kogut-Etsion elastic-plastic contact model is applied to calculate the contact stiffness coefficient at the bearing-bush interface and the perturbed method is used to calculate the stiffness and damping coefficients of water-film. In addition, the rubber deformation is determined by the finite element method (FEM) during the simulation. Parametric studies are conducted to assess the effects of the radial clearance, rubber thickness and elastic modulus on the dynamic characteristic of water-lubricated rubber bearing.

Numerical results indicate that stiffness and damping coefficients of water film and the contact stiffness of asperity are increased with the decreasing of the radial clearance and the dynamic coefficients are less sensitive to the rubber thickness compared with the elastic modulus of rubber. Furthermore, due to the existed groove, a sudden change of the water film direct stiffness and damping coefficients is observed when the eccentricity ratio ranges from 0.6 to 1.0.

It is expected this study can provide more information to establish a dynamic equation of water-lubricated rubber bearings exposed to mixed lubrication conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the lubrication performance of a water-lubricated polymer bearing with axial grooves, especially enlarge the minimum film thickness.

The bearing diameter is enlarged near the axial ends of the journal, with axial openings of a trumpet shape. A numerical model is developed which considers the proposed trumpet-shaped openings, bush deformation and grooves. The generatrix of the trumpet-shaped opening is assumed to be a paraboloid. Three different variations are covered, and the influences of the trumpet-shaped openings’ parameters on the bearing performance are analyzed.

The appropriate trumpet-shaped openings at the axial ends effectively increase the minimum film thickness, and the impact of trumpet-shaped openings on load carrying capacity is very small or even negligible. For the water-lubricated polymer bearing with axial grooves analyzed in this paper, the appropriate trumpet-shaped openings increase the minimum film thickness from 0.53 to 11.14 µm and decrease the load carrying capacity by 2.48 per cent.

The results of this study can be applied to marine propeller shaft systems and other systems with polymer bearings.

This paper has presented an approach for significantly increasing the minimum film thickness of a water-lubricated polymer bearing. A study on the performance improvement of water-lubricated polymer bearings with axial grooves is of significant interest to the research community.