Experimental study on wear life of journal bearings in the rotor system subjected to torque

Abstract

In the rotor system subjected to torque, the lubrication state of the journal bearings will change, which can lead to wear life change of such bearings. Therefore, the experimental study on the wear life prediction of the journal bearings in the rotor system subjected to torque was carried out. An improved Archard model for wear rate prediction was proposed, which can be applied to determine the relationship among speed, torque, and wear of different bearings. The 20 h wear of a single-span rotor system was tested at three speeds and torque. Test results show that the impact of torque on wear is greater than that of speed. The wear life of a bearing can be predicted with determined wear threshold. The 20 h wear was calculated by using the wear data of the rotor test bench in this model and compared with the actual wear. The comparison results indicate that the accuracy is higher than 92%. The torque – wear life curve shows that wear life is logarithmic to torque at a constant speed and significantly affected by changes in the low torque. Given a constant torque, the wear life will decrease logarithmically with the speed increasing.