Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Turbocharger Rotors on Full-Floating Ring Bearings With Circumferential Oil-Groove

Abstract

This work presents experimental and numerical investigations into the vibrations of turbocharger rotors on full-floating ring bearings with a circumferential oil-groove. The pressure distribution in the fluid-film bearings is calculated through the Reynolds equation using a highly efficient global Galerkin approach with suitable trial and test functions. The numerical efficiency of the method is markedly increased as the resultant linear system is solved symbolically, establishing a semi-analytical solution. The temperature in the oil-film may increase due to the mechanical power dissipation, affecting the pressure distribution and the load capacity of the bearing. Therefore, a reduced thermal energy model is implemented together with the Reynolds equation to account for the variable oil-viscosity and for the thermal expansion of the surrounding solids. The thermal energy balance equations are implemented in a transient form, i.e. including the time dependent temperature term. The corresponding system of nonlinear differential equations is efficiently solved, leading to a further significant reduction in simulation times. The hydrodynamic bearing model including the thermal effects is finally coupled with the equations of motion of a turbocharger rotor and numerical run-up simulations are compared with experimental results. The comparisons show that the numerical model captures adequately the dynamics of the system, giving precise information about the frequencies and the amplitudes of the synchronous and the self-excited subsynchronous rotor vibrations.