Numerical and experimental study on the dynamic characteristics of the foil journal bearing with double-layer protuberant support

A type of foil journal bearings with double-layer protuberant foils as elastic support was studied by numerical analysis and experiments. Two kinds of material (beryllium bronze and stainless steel) with different elasticity were used for the protuberant foils of the bearings. The analyzing model co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Advanced Mechanical Design, Systems, and Manufacturing Vol. 10; no. 2; p. JAMDSM0027
Main Authors ZHENG, Yueqing, CHEN, Shuangtao, LAI, Tianwei, ZHANG, Xingqun, HOU, Yu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers 01.01.2016
Subjects
Dynamic performance
Foil journal bearing
Hydrodynamic gas lubrication
Natural frequency
Turbo-expander
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Summary:A type of foil journal bearings with double-layer protuberant foils as elastic support was studied by numerical analysis and experiments. Two kinds of material (beryllium bronze and stainless steel) with different elasticity were used for the protuberant foils of the bearings. The analyzing model couples the hydrodynamics pressure of the gas film to the elastic deflection of the top foil and the underlying protuberant foils. The hydrodynamics of gas film is described by the Reynolds equation. The top foil and the protuberant foils are modeled as thin plates and the protuberances are treated as rigid support. For calculating the deflection of the top foil, the deflection of the protuberant layer beneath the top foil is taken into account. With a given load, the gas film thickness and pressure are obtained by using finite element method and finite difference method. The key static and dynamic parameters are presented. In experiments, both of the two foil bearings run well in a turbo-expander. The new takeoff and shutoff pressure and speed are proposed for practical operation of the hydrodynamic lubricated high speed turbo-expander. In addition, the synchronous and subsynchronous rotor motions have been tested and analyzed. The experimental tests of the two bearings in a high-speed turbo-expander suggest that the bearing using stainless steel as the foil material shows higher stiffness, which agrees well with the numerical predictions.
ISSN:1881-3054
1881-3054
DOI:10.1299/jamdsm.2016jamdsm0027