Research On Alignment Characteristics Of A Rotor Water Lubricated Rubber Bearing System

Rotor water lubricated rubber bearing system has been widely used in manyindustrial areas, including shipping, water conservancy, agricultural machinery andmetallurgy, for its numerous advantages such as friendly to water resources andunderwater working environment. Compared with general journal oil film bearing, thewater lubricated rubber bearing has many unique characteristics. For example, theviscosity of the water is extremely small, the length-diameter ratio is much big and theelasticity modulus is very small. Therefore, the static support characteristics andhydrodynamic lubrication characteristics of the water lubricated rubber bearing areextraordinary different from the general journal oil film bearing. At present, in China,little attention has been focused on the research of the alignment characteristics of therotor water lubricated rubber bearing system and therefore such a research is definitelynecessary and urgent.In order to provide beneficial theoretical fundamental and engineering suggestionsfor rotor water lubricated rubber bearing system alignment calculation and installation,the theoretical research was done as well as the experimental research. The specificresearch content as follows:Firstly, the multi-nonlinear-elastic support model was built for the left waterlubricated rubber bearing as well as the static alignment model of the shafting based onFEM. Then the rational shafting alignment optimization method was studied based onGA. Also, the effects of ship body deformation and hydrodynamic forces acting on thepropeller were taken into consideration and analyzed by numerical calculation.Secondly, the Reynolds equation was modified for the water lubricated rubberbearing and the elastic deformation model of the rubber liner was given at the same time.Then, based on finite difference method (FDM), elastohydrodynamic lubricationcharacteristics of the water lubricated rubber bearing were researched. Also, themultiple water film forces model was proposed and compared with the single water filmforce model. Additionly, the expression of the misaligned forces acting on the couplingwas noted. Finally, the effects of shafting alignment status on the dynamiccharacteristics of the shafting were investigated by simulation calculation.At last, to testify and certify the theoretical results obtained above, the rotor waterlubricated rubber bearing system dynamic test rig was designed and a series ofexperiments was conducted.