Grzegorz Rotta

On the Possibilities of Decreasing Power Loss in Large Tilting Pad Thrust Bearings

Different systems of direct oil supply have been developed in order to facilitate efficient introduction of fresh lubricant to the oil gap and reduction of churning power loss in tilting pad thrust bearings. Up to now there is no documented application of the supply groove in large thrust bearings used in water power plants. The results of modeling lubricant flow in the lubricating groove of a thrust bearing pad will be presented in the paper. CFD software was used to carry out fluid film calculations. Such analysis makes it possible to modify groove geometry and other parameters and to study their influence on bearing performance. According to the results a remarkable decrease in total power loss due to avoiding churning losses can be observed in the bearing.

THE ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF STRESS DISTRIBUTION ON WEAR PROFILE IN LUBRICATED SLIDING CONTACT OF UHMW-PE VS TITANIUM Ti-13Nb-13Zr ALLOY

Metal – polymer sliding contacts are a typical combination in industry and medicine. For decades such a set of materials has been the primary choice in human joints endoprosthetic technology. In this paper tribological issues of are presented from a research on the potential for practical use of Ti-13Nb-13Zr/UHMW-PE couple for orthopedic endoprosthesis. In tests on simplified models it is critically important to carefully select geometry of contact, load and velocity magnitudes and profiles to the later interpretation of results. In case of organic polymers interacting with metallic components the problem is even more prominent, than in the case of all metal systems because of great differences in the modulus of elasticity between the specimens in contact. High local loading can cause excessive heat generation and accelerated loss in polymer’s strength induced by thermal plastification. The process may not be manifested in the course of the experiment in any way detectable and might compromise the accuracy of wear measurement. In the case of the presented research an analysis has been performed to evaluate the observed wear profile of UHMW-PE with respect to non-uniform distribution of contact stress. A simulation was run with the use of FEM to evaluate the contact conditions between the titanium alloy and UHMW-PE specimens and the results were confronted with the wear profiles. Interesting similarities were discovered yielding useful information on the fundamentals of the wear in and for future research on similar systems.

Estimation of Young’s Modulus of the Porous Titanium Alloy with the Use of Fem Package

Abstract Porous structures made of metal or biopolymers with a structure similar in shape and mechanical properties to human bone can easily be produced by stereolithographic techniques, e.g. selective laser melting (SLM). Numerical methods, like Finite Element Method (FEM) have great potential in testing new scaffold designs, according to their mechanical properties before manufacturing, i.e. strength or stiffness. An example of such designs are scaffolds used in biomedical applications, like in orthopedics’ and mechanical properties of these structures should meet specific requirements. This paper shows how mechanical properties of proposed scaffolds can be estimated with regard to total porosity and pore shape.