Study on Subsynchronous Vibration With Tilting Pad Journal Bearing Under Starved Lubrication

Industrial machines such as gas and steam turbines require high efficiency and reliability. Direct lubricated bearings have been developed and installed to reduce mechanical losses. In recent years, it has been reported in the literature that subsynchronous vibration can occur to rotor shafts with direct lubricated tilting pad journal bearings under reduced oil flow rate conditions. In this study, a test rig with a 200 mm diameter and 3.5 meter long rotor supported by a direct lubricated tilting two pad journal bearing was constructed. The primary critical speed is 2100rpm and rotational speed is 3600rpm. The oil-starved area, the non-oil film layer region at the leading edge of the bearing pads, was measured by observing oil film pressure in the bearing clearance with pressure transducers on the rotor surface. A sine sweep excitation test was carried out by using an inertial shaker installed on the bearing housing and the damping ratio of the rotor system was measured. Measured data showed that a larger starved area at the leading edge of the bearing pads due to reduced oil feeding results in a smaller damping ratio, and an increase in the natural frequency of the rotor. Experimental results of two types of oil feeding nozzles were compared with respect to the correlation between starved area and damping ratio of the rotor system, and a relationship between oil flow rate and starved area was discussed. A method for modeling bearing coefficients under starved lubrication has been proposed based on thermo-hydrodynamic lubrication (THL) analysis. A numerical analysis of a finite element-transfer matrix model of the test rotor with the bearing coefficients calculated by the proposed method is carried out, and it is found that the analytical results are in broad agreement with the experimental results.