<p>Process fluid turbomachinery implements hybrid fluid film thrust bearings, combination hydrostatic and hydrodynamic) to support axial load and control axial shaft motions. Hybrid fluid film bearings offer significantly enhanced durability with very low friction and wear while providing accurate rotor positioning as well as large load and static stiffness characteristics even working with low viscosity liquids. Additive manufacturing allows cost-effective and time-saving fabrication for turbomachinery component testing and performance measurements. The current work aims to evaluate the static load performance of 3D-printed hybrid bearings lubricated with a compressible fluid. The test bearing, fabricated using Fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology and embedded with onyx and ~35% carbon fibers, has flat surfaces with inner and outer diameters equal to 63 mm and 145 mm, respectively. The bearing has uniformly distributed eight pockets on the bearing circumference with 90 mm in mean diameter, 20-degree in arc length, and 0.51 mm in depth. The simple component-level bearing test facility allows to test and evaluate the current bearing design with various load and fluid property conditions. The measured bearing static load characteristics are quite similar to the bearing fabricated with a subtractive manufacturing process. The measured static load performance of the test bearings is compared to experimental data. The current predictions use measured bearing geometries and actual operating conditions. The future work accesses the feasibility of direct metal laser melting (DMLM) technology in the fabrication of complicated hybrid fluid film bearings with high load capacity and damping capabilities for cryogenic turbopumps in reusable and low-cost rocket engines. Experimentally validated predictive bearing models significantly reduce time and expenses in further developments of hybrid cryogenic bearings, and aid to reduce the variability in identically constructed test bearing units while also certifying their scalability.</p>

Static Load Characteristics of Additively Manufactured Hybrid Thrust Bearings: Measurements Versus Predictions

No proceedings papers in 2021. Video only.

ASME 2021 Advanced Manufacturing & Repair for Gas Turbines (AMRGT2021)

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.