Due to government regulations together with health and safety reasons, there are increasing demands on reducing hazardous polluting chemicals from fossil fuel power plants. Therefore, more efforts are imposed on using renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and tide to produce clean/green electricity. On top of that, there is another increasing demand from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to operate power plants with higher load while keep the power loss to the minimum. These requirements drive conventional fluid film bearings to its mechanical and temperature limits. This calls for the development of new bearing system designs. An outstanding tribological performance such as low start-up and break-away friction, excellent resistance to chemical attack and anti-seizure properties, can be achieved by introducing compliant polymer liners. At the same time, bearings with compliant liners may alter rotor-bearing system dynamic behaviour compared to the systems with conventional white metal bearings. The research approach of this thesis is to implement compliant liner on bearing surface, impose synchronous shaft excitation and investigate the effect of bearing design parameters on bearing dynamic response. Plain cylindrical journal bearings with different compliant liner thicknesses were analysed using a FEM approach. The numerical model was compared with an in-house developed code based on the finite difference method (FDM) for a bearing operated at steady state conditions. Results obtained by the numerical models showed good agreement. After verification of the numerical model for fixed geometry journal bearings, models for tilting pad journal bearings were developed. Dynamic behaviour of the tilting pad journal bearing with three pads with line pivot geometry was compared with published data. A good agreement was obtained between the two numerical models. The effect of pad pivot geometry on bearing dynamic response was investigated. Vertical and horizontal shaft configurations were compared in terms of the effect of preload factor, radial clearance, pivot offset, and pad inclination angles. Influence of the elastic properties of compliant liners was also studied. All these factors significantly affect bearing dynamic response. It is shown how these factors should be selected to control the journal orbit sizes. Misalignments in compliant tilting pad journal bearings were analysed for load between pivots and load on pivots with consideration of thermal effects. Significant improvements in bearing performance were obtained with compliant bearings compared to white metal bearings. Furthermore, different polymer materials (PTFE, UHMWPE, pure PEEK and PEEK composite) were characterized using Frequency Response Function (FRF). It was shown that as the excitation frequency increased the equivalent stiffness was more or less constant while equivalent damping decreased exponentially. PTFE had similar equivalent stiffness compared to PEEK. As for equivalent damping, PTFE had slightly higher damping compared to PEEK or UHMWPE. Oil film thickness, oil film temperature and loads on tilting pad journal bearing were measured on 10 MW Kaplan hydroelectric power machine. Test results were compared to FEM model. It was shown that stiffness of the supporting structure may be more important to machine performance than the stiffness of the bearing alone. / <p>QC 20150409</p> / Swedish Hydropower Centre

Depuis plusieurs années à nos jours, les paliers à gaz sont utilisés avec succès sur une large gamme de turbo-machines. Certains de ces systèmes sont utilisés dans des environnements de contrôle de l’environnement par gaz réfrigérant. Dans ce travail, nous présentons un modèle théorique et numérique qui tient compte de la transition du lubrifiant vapeur / liquide, la transition de l’écoulement laminaire / turbulent et les variations 3D de la viscosité et de la température dans le fluide et les solides pour les deux situations statiques et dynamiques. Ce modèle comporte : la résolution de l'équation de Reynolds généralisée pour les fluides compressibles à viscosité variable en 3D, la description des effets de la turbulence en utilisant l'approche phénoménologique de Elrod, en utilisant un champ de viscosité turbulente 3D, la résolution de l’équation d’état non linéaire du lubrifiant, capable de décrire la transition vapeur / liquide et une approche thermique local afin d'obtenir une estimation 3D de la température du fluide, grâce à l'équation d'énergie pour film mince. La prise en compte également des effets thermiques dans les solides. Dans cette étude, nous avons montré l'importance d'une description précise des paramètres du film fluide, dont les variations influencent largement le comportement du palier. Parmi les principales théories, il y a: lubrifiant compressible, avec un comportement non-linéaire près de la transition vapeur / liquide, la transition vapeur / liquide et le calcul des paramètres équivalents du mélange, un écoulement turbulent du fluide pour le palier GFB à grande vitesse en utilisant un modèle 3D de la viscosité turbulente, un comportement 3D pour la viscosité, en particulier les variations inter-films (dépendant de la température), et un comportement 3D pour la température, en particulier dans le sens transversal du film afin d'être compatible avec la viscosité, mais également dans la direction axiale afin de tenir en compte du gradient de température potentiel qui modifie considérablement le profil 3D de la température du palier. Ces deux comportements statiques et dynamiques du palier compliant GFB sont analysés. / For years now, gas bearings are successfully used over a large panel of turbo-machineries. Some of these systems are bound to be run in controlled environments such as refrigerating gas. In this work we present a theoretical and numerical model which takes into account the vapor/liquid lubricant transition, the laminar/turbulent flow transition and both temperature and viscosity 3D variations in the fluid and the solids for both static and dynamic situations. This model involves: the resolution of the generalized Reynolds equation for compressible fluids with 3D variable viscosity, the description of the turbulence effects by the phenomenological approach of Elrod, using a 3D eddy viscosity field, the resolution of a non-linear equation of state for the lubricant, able to describe the vapor/liquid transition and a local thermal approach to obtain a 3D estimation of the fluid temperature, thanks to the thin-film energy equation. The thermal effects in solids are also taken into account. In this study, we showed the importance of an accurate description of the film parameters, which variations largely influence the bearing behaviour. Among the principal theories, there are: compressible lubricant, with an appropriate non-linear behaviour when close to the vapor/liquid transition, vapor/liquid transition and calculation of the mixture equivalent parameters, turbulent flow for high-speed GFBs with a 3D eddy viscosity mode, a 3D behaviour for viscosity, particularly the cross-film variations, (temperature dependent)and a 3D behaviour for temperature, particularly in cross-film direction in order to be consistent with viscosity, but also in the axial direction in order to account for potential temperature gradient which considerably modifies the bearing 3D temperature profile. Both static and dynamic behaviours of GFBs are analysed.