| dc.description.abstract | Gas bearings provide a variety of benefits including eliminating the need for oil, reducing power losses, enabling high speed operation, and reducing equipment footprint. Gas bearings have been successfully used in small size turbomachinery, but implementation in larger machinery has proven difficult due to their limitations in dynamic performance and load capacity. For example, hydrostatic gas bearings are susceptible to air-hammer instability, a phenomenon in which the compressibility of the gas creates a self-excited instability that can lead to bearing failure. The purpose of this research project is to advance the state-of-the-art of process gas lubricated bearings for land-based turbomachinery applications. The main goal will be to experimentally characterize the static and dynamic performance of aerostatic gas films using porous carbon material as the gas delivery system. The proposed experiments are designed to identify stiffness and damping of porous carbon pads. The pads will be tested in a dynamic flat plate tester. Stiffness and damping coefficients can be calculated as a function of excitation frequency, applied load, and pressure ratio for multiple film thicknesses and inlet pressures. This paper will present simulated results for gas bearing static performance and discuss test procedures that will be carried out to experimentally characterize static and dynamic gas bearing performance in the future. | en |
