Measurement And Calculation Of A Self-Equalized Tilting-Pad Thrust Bearing Under Static Misalignment

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Date

2022

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Turbomachinery Laboratory, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station

Abstract

Tilting-pad thrust bearings which include a self-equalizing feature, ensure reliable and safe operation especially under conditions on which misalignment between bearing and collar occurs. One common method to incorporate such a self-equalizing feature to a thrust tilting-pad bearing is the usage of leveling links. Radii and spherical contacts ensure a free rolling surface between the links, thrust pads and bearing housing. However, the verification whether a design works properly can be relatively challenging. For example, the friction forces between all the radii contacts always lead to different residual misalignments between the pads. This leads to a periodic rotational distribution of the hydrodynamic pressure and thus to different temperatures of each pad. This paper shows detailed measurements of a self-equalizing thrust tilting-pad bearing using leveling links. The test campaign includes a wide range of bearing to collar misalignment and operating conditions. The measurements show, that such a mechanical equalizing-mechanism may sufficiently balance very large deflections, despite the fact, that the residual pad misalignment of each pad due to friction lead to a relative high temperature difference between the pads. Furthermore, the paper presents a methodology of calculating the bearing behavior of self-equalizing thrust bearings to generate a better understanding and assessment of the proper function of such a bearing design. It presents the development of a mechanical model, which can iteratively solve a FEA software and a thermo-elastic-hydrodynamic (TEHD) software for fluid-film bearings.

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