New-Generation Development Rigs for Testing High-Speed Air-Lubricated Thrust Bearings

Piotr Hryniewicz, Dennis H. Locke and Hooshang Heshmat Mohawk Innovative Technology, Inc. Albany, NY 12205

Abstract A major advantage of advanced compliant air-lubricated bearings is their ability to operate at very high rotational speeds and/or very high operating temperatures. Successful development of these bearings requires experimental testing of new bearing designs at equally extreme conditions. This paper describes design and performance of two new-generation thrust bearing test rigs, which allow testing at speeds up to 80000 rpm, and at temperatures up to 650 C (1200 F). Because of their completely oil-free design, the test rigs are very compact and cost-effective. Over 350 tests performed up to date have demonstrated viability of the new design. The envelope of experimental conditions covered the load range from zero to 1330 N (300 lbs), speed range from 20000 to 82000 rpm, and temperature range from room temperature to 540 C (1000 F).

Introduction Advanced compliant foil bearings have a number of advantages over roller element bearings. They can operate at very high speeds and/or temperatures, exhibit good stability at high speeds due to their strong damping properties, finally, they are oil-free, which allows a significant reduction of the complexity, weight, and cost of the system. Foil bearings have demonstrated successful operation in many applications, e.g., aircraft air-cycle machines, advanced gas turbines, oil-free compressors, and turbo-expanders. Meeting thrust load-carrying requirements is often the most difficult challenge, and a limiting factor, when foil bearings are incorporated into a design. This is why a significant research effort is under way, which aims at improving load-carrying capacity of a compliant foil thrust bearing. Although theoretical studies (1, 2, 3) can guide the design process, the actual performance of any new bearing design can only be determined experimentally. And since foil bearings show their cutting edge at extreme conditions, such as high-speed and high-temperature operation, the experimental conditions need to be equally extreme. This makes development of a test rig challenging. Traditionally, high-speed thrust bearing test rigs have utilized rotors supported on precision ball bearings (2, 4). Although the rigs were fully operational, the ball bearing support introduced a few significant limitations. The designs limited the operating temperatures to near room temperatures, the life span of ball bearings at speeds over 50000 rpm was very short (order of hours), dynamic stability of the system was difficult to achieve (ball bearings provide little damping), and sealing between the oil and oil-free sections of the rig was very challenging, and often inadequate. This paper presents state-of-the-art design of two high-speed, high-temperature thrust bearing test rigs. Utilizing a set of proven foil journal bearings and a magnetic thrust bearing, the new test rigs are completely oil-free, and deliver stable, reliable, and lowmaintenance operation at speeds up to 80000 rpm, temperatures up to 650 C (1200 F), and thrust loads in excess of 1330 N (300 pounds).

The New Test Rig Design The two rigs, referred here as rig A and rig B, are based on the same underlying design concept. Rig B is newer and its design has a few modifications based on the lessons learned from running Rig A. The rigs will be described together, and the differences will be indicated as needed. Schematic drawing of the test rigs is presented in Figure 1, and a photograph of rig B is shown in Figure 2.
Tested Hydrostatic Thrust Coil Bearing Heater Bearing Loader Piston Thrust Runner High Temp. Foil Journal Bearing Magnetic Thrust Bearing Foil Journal Bearing Turbine Wheel

Loader Pressure Heated Air

Axial Displacement Probe Torque Arm

Figure 1. Schematic drawing of the thrust bearing test rigs. The rig consists of two main parts: a high-speed section and a loader section. The highspeed section contains a rotor, which is supported radially on two hydrodynamic foil journal bearings, and axially on a magnetic thrust reaction bearing. There is an air-driven turbine wheel attached to one end of the rotor, and a thrust runner mounted to the other end. The rotor system is dynamically balanced to less than 7 10-7 Nm (0.0001 oz-in). The radial and axial motions of the rotor are monitored with proximity probes, and the signal from the axial probe is used as a feedback signal for the magnetic bearing controller. The rotational speed is measured with an optical probe facing a two-colored target. The high-speed section is capable of rotating at speeds up to 80000 rpm, which for a 0.102 m (4 in) diameter runner corresponds to the supersonic tip velocity of 425 m/s (1400 ft/s).

Figure 2. Photograph of test rig B. The loader section consists of the tested thrust bearing which is mounted on a loader piston, which in turn is levitated on a hydrostatic bearing. The applied load is proportional to the air pressure delivered to behind the piston. The piston is restrained from rotation with a torque arm, which presses against a calibrated flexure and enables precise torque measurement. Due to various temperature capabilities of test rig components, different sections of the test rig should be maintained at different temperatures. The tested bearing temperature needs to be controlled between room temperature and 650 C (1200 F), while temperatures at other areas, especially at the loader piston and magnetic bearing, should be maintained as low as possible. The desired temperatures at various locations in the test rig are monitored with thermocouples and kept under control with a system of heaters, heat barriers, and cooling/heating air flow paths. High temperature to the test chamber is provided with a 3000 W coil heater positioned around the chamber, and with an air flow which passes through two 6000 W tube heaters and is directed axially at the face of the runner. There are two other air paths in the system, one for cooling the journal bearing at the runner end, and the other for cooling the journal bearing on the turbine end and the magnetic bearing. These cooling flows, together with ceramic heat barriers, ensure that the test rig is not overheated. There are two major differences between test rigs A and B. One is the size of the magnetic bearing. Rig A has a relatively small, 0.089 m (3.5 in) diameter magnetic bearing, which can carry over 2200 N (500 lbs) statically and over 1300 N (300 lbs) dynamically. Rig B has a much larger, 0.14 m (5.5 in) diameter new magnetic bearing,

which demonstrated static load capacity of over 3100 N (700 lbs) and is expected to carry same load dynamically as well. The other difference between the two rigs is the way they manage elevated temperatures in the loader section. When running high temperature experiments with rig A, it was found that the loader piston expands more than does the hydrostatic bearing which surrounds it, even though they are made of the same material. This thermal expansion results in reduction of the gap between the two, and eventually a seizure. To remedy this problem, the design of rig B moved the hydrostatic bearing from the outside of the loader piston to the inside. This change, together with better thermal shielding of the loader section, successfully alleviated the problem. The Control System for the Magnetic Thrust Bearing

Kpiston

Xpiston Loader Piston

Kfoil

Xrotor Rotor

Kmag

Bpiston

Bfoil

Bmag

Figure 3. Simplified free-body diagram of the dynamic system in the axial direction. One of the major challenges faced during the design of the test rigs was the design of the control system for the active magnetic bearing, which ensures dynamic stability of the rig. A detailed description of the magnetic bearing and its controls can be found in (5). A simplified block diagram of the system is shown in Figure 3. The challenge of the control application stems from the fact that the system has two degrees of freedom in the axial direction (Xrotor and Xpiston) while the magnetic bearing can directly control only one of them (Xrotor). Moreover, since the loader piston is fully levitated on the hydrostatic bearing, its axial and rotational motion is virtually frictionless, and therefore the stiffness and damping of the piston are nearly zero. Thus the damping of the piston motion comes solely from the tested foil bearing. Finally, the foil bearing (which couples the motions of the rotor and the piston) exhibits stiffness and damping that vary with load, rotational speed, and possibly other parameters. Given the complexity of the problem, the employed control system performs remarkably well, with the axial motion below 0.005 mm (0.0002 in) under most experimental conditions. However, experiments showed that under certain combinations of load and rotational speed the rigs develop axial vibration with the amplitudes as large as 0.1 mm (0.004 in). In order to alleviate this problem, a frictional damper was introduced. The schematics of the damper assembly is shown in Figure 4. The assembly consists of a set of axially preloaded angular contact ball bearings, with the inner races attached to the loader piston, and the outer races in contact with the loader housing via a radially

preloaded split ring. Friction between the ring and the loader housing provides enough damping to reduce the amplitude of axial vibration in the system to under 0.005 mm (0.0002 in), while the use of ball bearings allows for the piston to rotate with very low friction, and therefore torque measurement is possible. Although the damping assembly does introduce error to both torque and load determination, the errors are typically under 5% of the reading value.

Elastic Element

Loader Housing Frictional Split Ring

Loader Piston

Ball Bearings

Figure 4. Schematic drawing of the frictional damper assembly.

Test Rig Performance Evaluation To date over 350 tests have been performed with the two thrust bearing test rigs (over 300 tests with rig A, and about 50 tests with rig B). While the tests run with rig A focused typically on performance of a particular thrust bearing design, the tests performed with rig B aimed mostly at validation of the rig itself, before it was shipped to the customer. Since the scope of this paper is limited to the test rig design and performance, only a representative sample of experimental results was chosen to illustrate the ability of the two test rigs, and the performance of foil thrust bearings will be discussed only to the extent that serves this purpose. Figure 5 shows a number of representative operating conditions reached during tests with rig A (circles) and rig B (squares). Solid points represent the load at which the tested thrust bearing reached its load carrying capacity and failed. It can be seen that both rigs operated successfully at speeds up to 82000 rpm and loads over 1300 N (300 lbs). It should be emphasized that the demonstrated envelope of operating speeds and loads (represented by the shaded area) is limited to the indicated load values not by the limitations of the test rigs, but rather by the tested thrust bearings. This is particularly true for test rig B, which has a high load capacity magnetic thrust reaction bearing (as described in the preceding section) designed for loads up to 3100 N (700 lbs). Similarly, the temperature range at which tests were performed was limited by the capability of the tested bearing, rather than by the rig itself.

1400 1200 1000 Load (N) 800 600 400 200 0 0

Rig A Rig B

260 C (500 F )

300 250 200

260 C (500 F ) 360 C (680 F )

150 100

Demonstrated Operating Conditions Envelope

540 C (1000 F )

50 0 100

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Speed (rpm x 1000)

Figure 5. Envelope of operating conditions covered during testing with rig A (circles) and rig B (squares). Solid points represent conditions at which the tested thrust bearing reached its load capacity. All tests at room temperature, unless indicated otherwise.

Load (lbs)

The main purpose of the test rigs is to determine and compare performance of new foil thrust bearing designs. Two most common comparison criteria used to this end are load at failure (or load-carrying capacity), and torque (or power) at a particular operating condition. Determination of load-carrying capacity, during which the thrust bearing is intentionally pushed to failure (solid points in Figure 5) is an ultimate test for the robustness and stability of the rigs. During these runs the hydrodynamic film between the foil thrust bearing and the runner is ruptured, with the corresponding rapid increase in the coefficient of friction, torque, and temperatures, and oftentimes severe damage of the tested bearing. Both rigs A and B demonstrated their ability to handle such extreme situations. Figure 6 plots the recorded axial position of the rotor as a function of time during an intentional failure of the tested bearing. The failure occurred at the speed of 80000 rpm and the load of 1290 N (290 lbs). It can be seen that while during the failure the axial excursion of the shaft was significant (about 0.2 mm), as soon as the tested bearing was unloaded, the test rig returned to a stable operation. (The observed difference in the axial position of the rotor before and after the event is the manifestation of the compliance of the magnetic thrust bearing). Damage within the test rig was limited to the tested thrust bearing and severe wear marks on the opposing thrust runner. A typical set of torque curves is presented in Figure 7, which plots the measured torque as a function of the applied load for three constant operating speeds of 30000, 40000, and 60000 rpm. Such curves are very useful to quantify and compare performance of different bearing designs, and can also be used as a verification of the accuracy of a theoretical model describing the bearing operation.
Axial Position (inch)

0.005

0.000

-0.005

10 Time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

Figure 6. Axial position of the shaft as a function of time during failure of the tested bearing.

Load (lbs) 0 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 1.5 0.15 30000 rpm 0.1 0.05 0 0 200 400 600 Load (N) 800 1000 1 Torque (lb-in) Torque (N-m) 40000 rpm 2 50 100 150 200 250 3 60000 rpm

2.5

0.5

0 1200

Figure 7. Typical torque vs. load curves at three rotational speeds. Conclusion Two new-generation thrust bearing test rigs have been designed and manufactured, and their performance have been verified experimentally. Each test rig utilizes two compliant foil journal bearings and a magnetic thrust bearing, resulting in a completely oil-free operation. The test rigs demonstrated stable and robust performance at rotational speeds up to 82000 rpm and temperatures up to 540 C (1000 F). The rigs are invaluable tools which assist the development of new compliant thrust bearings. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge help from Mohawk Innovative Technology Inc., in particular, Dr. Erik Swanson, Mr. Michael Tomaszewski, and Mr. Charlie Mirella. Support from Small Business Innovative Research contracts sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is acknowledged and greatly appreciated. Generous assistance from NASA GRC staff, especially Mr. Steven Bauman, Dr. Christopher DellaCorte, and Dr. Mark Valco (Army Research Laboratory) is also appreciated.

References (1) Heshmat, H., Walowit, J. A. and Pinkus O., Analysis of Gas Lubricated Compliant Thrust Bearings, ASME Jour. of Lubr. Tech., 105, pp 638-646, (1983). (2) Iordanoff, I. Analysis of an Aerodynamic Compliant Foil Thrust Bearing: Method of Rapid Design, ASME Jour. of Trib., 121, pp 816-822, (1999). (3) Heshmat, C. A., Xu, D. S. and Heshmat H., Analysis of Gas Lubricated Foil Thrust Bearings Using Coupled Finite Element and Finite Difference Methods, ASME Jour. of Trib., 122, pp 199-204, (2000). (4) Heshmat, H. and Shapiro W., Advanced Development of Air-Lubricated Foil Thrust Bearings, ASLE Lubr. Engrg., 40, pp 21-26, (1984). (5) Russell, T. E., Heshmat, C. and Locke, D. H., Hybrid Magnetic/Foil Bearing System for an Oil-Free Thrust Bearing Test Rig, ASME J of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power, (accepted).