Guoding Chen

Effect of oil droplet deformation on its deposited characteristics in an aeroengine bearing chamber

The efficient designs of lubrication and heat transfer in an aeroengine bearing chamber require a better understanding of the complex air/oil two-phase flow in the chamber, which contains oil droplet deformation and motion, as well as droplet/wall interactions including wall impingement and deposition behavior. A modified droplet deformation model is proposed to describe the effect of deformation on the motion, and then a splash critical criterion also is established by means of energy conservation to estimate the impingement conditions of droplets. Using the above knowledge, in combination with a secondary droplet characteristic model predicting the outcome of droplet impact with wall, the droplet deformation, motion, and the associated transfer of mass and momentum are calculated in an aeroengine bearing chamber, and the effects of air mass flow rates and shaft speeds are subsequently discussed. This article may contribute to providing initial conditions to study further film flow behavior on the chamber housing.

Dynamic analysis of finger seal using equivalent model based on distributed mass method

Dynamic analysis of finger seal can be performed by finite element method or equivalent model based on lumped mass method now available, which is difficult in meeting both the acceptable calculation time and accuracy simultaneously. For this reason, interactions between finger elements are considered and the equivalent dynamic model based on distributed mass method is proposed in this article. Seal dynamic performances are obtained by using this model to calculate the equivalent parameters, air leakage flow, and the contact behavior between finger seal and the rotor. The work to be presented here concerns the mapping of dynamic behavior of the finger seal with a stack of three finger elements, including the dynamic displacement responses of finger elements, the leakage clearances, and the contact pressures between the finger elements and the rotor, as well as the leakage flow rate and the wear rate. The results calculated by the equivalent model presented in this study are evaluated by comparison with the published experimental data and results from the model based on lumped mass method, which shows that the equivalent model based on distributed mass method is far superior to that based on lumped mass method because the calculations are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Research into Configuration and Flow of Wall Oil Film in Bearing Chamber Based on Droplet Size Distribution

The lubrication design and heat transfer determination of bearing chambers in aeroengine require a sufficient understanding of the oil droplet-film interaction and physical characteristic in an oil/air two-phase flow state. The analyses of oil droplet movement, mass and momentum transfer during the impingement of droplet/wall, as well as wall oil film thickness and flow velocity are very important for the bearing chamber lubrication and heat transfer calculation. An integrated model in combination with droplet movement, droplet/wall impact and film flow analysis is put forward initially based on the consideration of droplet size distribution. The model makes a contribution to provide more practical and feasible technical approach, which is not only for the study of droplet-film interaction and physical behavior in bearing chambers with oil/air two-phase flow phenomena, but also useful for an insight into the essence of physical course through droplet movement and deposition, film formation and flow. The influences of chamber geometries and operating conditions on droplet deposition mass and momentum transfer, and wall film thickness and velocity distribution are discussed. The feasibility of the method by theoretical analysis is also verified by the existing experimental data. The current work is conducive to expose the physical behavior of wall oil film configuration and flow in bearing chamber, and also significant for bearing chamber lubrication and heat transfer study under oil/air two-phase flow conditions.

Impact dynamic analysis of C/C composite finger seal

With the development of science and technology, the performance of an aero-engine has been given more rigorous requirements. Seal device is an important component part of an aero-engine, and the improvement in its performance may be an efficient way to further improve the performance of an aero-engine. Finger seal is a flexible seal and has higher performance price ratio, therefore it gets more attention and research recently. The phenomenon of noncontact state converting to contact state will occur in every working cycle of finger seal that inevitably lead to the finger seal bearing the impact effect of rotor. But so far, the influence of impact on the finger seal performance has not been discussed and researched. To overcome this shortcoming, the stress–strain curves of C/C composite under different impact velocities are obtained by the Gleeble3500 thermo-simulator system in the paper, and then the elastic modulus of C/C composite in three directions is calculated by experimental data. The effects of impact velocity and impact damping on the impact force are analyzed by means of the impact theory. The new structural stiffness of finger seal and the impact displacement excitation of the rotor are built through impact effect analysis. On this basis, the equivalent dynamic model of C/C composite finger seal with distributed mass is established to evaluate the impact effect. By the model, the difference of calculated results is analyzed under whether considering the impact effect or not. And the effect of impact velocity and coefficient of restitution on the dynamic performance of the finger seal is also analyzed under considering the impact effect, respectively. The above results show that the impact effect has significant influence on the leakage and wear of finger seal, therefore when the performance of the finger seal was analyzed, it is necessary to consider the impact effect.

Effect of work status on leakage and contact pressure of C/C composite finger seal

The effect of a seal device on the performance of aeroengines is obvious. As well as the complicated operating state of aeroengines also has important influence on seal device performance. Finger seal is a new seal device, which has been extensively studied recently. However, so far there is little work about finger seal’s dynamic performance considering work status. For this reason, finger seal’s dynamic performance considering work status is proposed using equivalent dynamic model with distributed mass in this paper. The effects of the precession and nutation incline of rotor on the finger seal’s performance are investigated. Meanwhile, density and preparation direction of fiber bundle have influence on its dynamic performance and that is studied under the rotor precession incline. Based on this, it is shown that the effect of rotor precession incline on the finger seal dynamic performance is obvious, thus it is necessary to consider the effect of the factor on finger seal dynamic performance. The present work is conducive to promote dynamic analysis technology of finger seal to engineering application, and also improve the theoretical research system and methodology of finger seal.

Effect of temperature on the dynamic performance of C/C composite finger seal:

The designs of sealing device have prominent influence on the performance of aero-engine. The high temperature environment during the working process of aero-engine also has important influence on the performance of sealing device which is located in the aero-engine. Finger seal has a flexible characteristic and high price performance compared with the other seal devices, thus it gets more attention, and lots of researchers have studied about finger seal’s performance recently. But so far the dynamic performance of finger seal considering temperature effect is not yet analyzed and discussed. Based on this, an equivalent dynamic model based on distributed mass considering temperature effect is proposed in the paper. The effects of environment temperature and heat through friction on the equivalent structural stiffness of finger stick and contact pressure between finger stick and rotor are discussed. Moreover, the data exchange between the dynamic and thermal analysis is confirmed based on the movement relationship between the rotor excitation and finger stick response. Therefore, the dynamic performance analysis of finger seal including thermal-structure coupling is obtained based on an equivalent dynamic method. The effect of temperature on the dynamic performance of finger seal using this model is analyzed, and the effect of C/C composite structural parameters on the finger seal performance is investigated considering the temperature effect. The above results show that the temperature effect has important influence on the performance of finger seal, so it is necessary to consider the temperature effect when the performance of finger seal is analyzed. The current work further improves the theoretical system about finger seal equivalent dynamic research, and has higher academic significance and engineering value.

Theoretical and experimental studies on the motion and thermal states of oil droplet in a bearing chamber

Study on the motion and thermal states of oil droplet is an important part of research on the oil/air two-phase flow and heat transfer in an aero engine bearing chamber. In this paper, dimensional analysis is applied to the airflow analysis of bearing chamber. That makes the analysis model suitable for a wide range of geometric and operating conditions. Moreover, the temperature solution is added to the oil droplet motion analysis. That could promote the calculation accuracy of the droplet trajectory, velocity, and temperature. Firstly, the similarity criteria of the airflow in a bearing chamber are determined based on the dimensional analysis. The airflow distribution general formulas are proposed based on the numerical results of airflow velocity and temperature. The general formulas include 14 similarity criteria and are suitable for various geometric and operating conditions. The reliability of the general formulas is verified by some available experimental results. Secondly, the difference equations of the oil droplet velocity and temperature are listed by the difference method. The velocity and temperature of the droplet are obtained using a step-by-step method. The influence of droplet diameter, shaft rotational speed, air flow rate, and temperature on the oil droplet trajectory, velocity, and temperature are discussed. Thirdly, a test facility is built in order to investigate into the oil droplet motion and thermal states in a bearing chamber. The trajectory and velocity of the oil droplet are measured by the high-speed photography. Lastly, the proposed theoretical method about the oil droplet motion and thermal states is verified by above measurement results. The work in this paper may have a certain significance for perfecting the research system and improving the research level on the oil/air two-phase flow and heat transfer in an aero engine bearing chamber.

Thermo-hydrodynamic analysis of large-eccentricity hydrodynamic bearings with texture on journal surface

To improve the performance of a heavy-loaded and high-speed hydrodynamic bearing, partial texture is designed on the journal surface. A three-dimensional thermo-hydrodynamic analysis model is developed based on the computational fluid dynamics method. Thermal conduction of bearing bush and journal, heat convection on the air-bearing surface, viscosity–temperature effect, and cavitation effect are taken into account. Performance of textured and un-textured high-speed journal bearing under different eccentricity ratios and different external loads is compared. The results indicated that partial texture on journal surface can play a positive role for large eccentricity ratio conditions in this study, and the textured bearing has a higher load carrying capacity, a lower maximum oil pressure, and a lower oil temperature rise than the un-textured bearing based on an optimal design of texture.

Progressive wear prediction of C/C composite finger seal based on ALE adaptive meshing strategy

Leakage clearance between the finger seal and the rotor is influenced by the seal wear, and a large leakage clearance may cause sealing failure. The aim of this study is to develop a predictive method to simulate the progressive wear of C/C composite finger seal. A finite element model is presented for the finger seal dynamic motion. A wear model is built by calculating the local wear rate for the nodes on finger foot bottom and by introducing an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian adaptive meshing strategy. Progressive wear analysis is implemented by integrating the finger dynamic motion and the wear model. The results show that the contact pressure of finger seal is decreased and the leakage clearance is increased with operating time due to progressive wear. Compared to the case that the non-woven cloth is parallel to rotor surface (O1) and the case that the non-woven cloth is perpendicular to rotor surface but the laminated direction is perpendicular to sliding direction (O2), low leakage and low wear are obtained when the non-woven cloth is perpendicular to rotor surface and the laminated direction is the same as sliding direction (O3). In addition, the wear depth of finger foot and the leakage clearance between the finger seal and rotor are both increased with pressure differential and rotor speed.

Dynamic analysis of finger seal in the complex working state

With the development of aero-engine industry technology, the operating conditions for finger seal become more horrible, including that high temperature, assembly type of finger seal, rotor tilt, and impact of rotor coexist. Unfortunately, the coupled effect on the dynamic performance of finger seal is not studied in previous works for the dynamic of finger seal. In this paper, the parameters of equivalent dynamic model for finger seal, including the equivalent structure stiffness of finger stick, the contact stiffness between finger stick and rotor, the friction heat between finger boot and rotor and the rotor displacement excitation, are corrected when the coupled effect of rotor tilt, assembly condition, temperature, and impact are considered. In addition, the distributed mass equivalent dynamic model is developed for considering the complex working conditions (including rotor tilt, assembly condition, temperature effect, and impact effect). Based on this model, the dynamic performance of finger seal in the complex working state is analyzed, and the influence of the complex working state on the dynamic performance is also studied. The results indicate that effect of the complex working state on the leakage performance and wear performance of finger seal is complex. The work in this paper demonstrates the necessity of considering the complex working conditions in the analysis of the dynamic performance of finger seal.