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Bearings are very important machinery components since they dominate machine performance. Almost all machines and mechanisms with a rotating part, from the smallest motor to the largest power plants, from turbomachinery to reciprocating engines, and other industrial equipment our modern society relies upon, could not function without the use of bearings in some form. If one of the bearings fail, not only do the machines stop, but the assembly line also stops, and the resulting costs may be extremely high. For this reason, every bearing manufacturer makes every effort to ensure the highest quality for each bearing and that the end user subjects the bearing to careful use and properly maintains this component.
A bearing can be defined as a machine element which supports another moving machine element (known as a journal). It permits a relative motion between the contact surfaces of the members, while carrying the loads (static and dynamic). Some consideration will show that due to the relative motion between the contact surfaces, a certain amount of power is wasted in overcoming frictional resistance. If the rubbing surfaces are in direct contact, there will be rapid wear. In order to reduce frictional resistance, wear, and in some cases to carry away the heat generated, a layer of fluid (known as lubricant) may be provided. This lubricant is used to separate the journal and bearing, which allows the moving parts to move smoothly and helps to achieve more efficient machine operation. Some of the common bearing types are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Common Types of Bearing Examples. SOURCE: [1]The main purpose of bearings is to prevent direct metal to metal contact between two elements that are in relative motion. This prevents friction, heat generation and ultimately, the wear and tear of parts. It also reduces the energy consumption required for moving parts. Additionally, they also transmit the load of the rotating element to the housing. This load may be axial, radial or a combination of both. Bearings also restrict the freedom of movement of moving parts to a predefined direction. With all these aspects, bearings are clearly important for the operations and the reliability of mechanical products. The right bearing can increase useful life of the machine, and enhance the machine’s overall performance. The wrong bearing can lead to premature failure, increased downtime, and increased wear and fatigue among all components of the machine. Read More
Pumps are machines that transfer liquids from suction to discharge by converting mechanical energy from a rotating impeller into what is known as head. The pressure applied to the liquid forces the fluid to flow at the required rate and to overcome frictional losses in piping, valves, fittings, and process equipment.
When it comes to pump selection, reliability and efficiency go hand-in-hand. Generally, a pump that has been selected and controlled properly for its normal operating points will operate near its best efficiency point (BEP) flow, with low forces exerted on the mechanical components and low vibration — all of which result in optimal reliability.
There are several factors like process fluid properties, end use requirements, environmental conditions, pump material, inlet conditions, and others which should be considered while selecting pumps for industrial applications. Selecting the right pump type and sizing it correctly are critical to the success of any pump application. Pumping applications include constant or variable flow rate requirements, serving single or networked loads, and consisting of open loops (nonreturn or liquid delivery) or closed loops (return systems).
Some crucial factors considered while pump selections include:
Fluid Properties: The pumping fluid properties can significantly affect the choice of pump. Key considerations include:
Acidity/alkalinity and chemical composition. Corrosive and acidic fluids can degrade pumps and should be considered when selecting pump materials.
Operating temperature: Pump materials and expansion, mechanical seal components, and packing materials need to be considered with pumped fluids that are hotter than 200°F.
Solids concentrations/particle sizes: When pumping abrasive liquids such as industrial slurries, selecting a pump that will not clog or fail prematurely depends on particle size, hardness, and the volumetric percentage of solids.
Specific gravity: It affects the energy required to lift and move the fluid and must be considered when determining pump power requirements.
Vapor pressure and Viscosity: Proper consideration of the fluid’s vapor pressure will help to minimize the risk of cavitation. High viscosity fluids result in reduced centrifugal pump performance and increased power requirements. It is particularly important to consider pump suction-side line losses when pumping viscous fluids.
Materials of Construction: It is always required to check the compatibility of materials of construction with the process liquid or any other liquids the pump might encounter. The initial cost of these materials is normally the first consideration. The operational costs, replacement costs and longevity of service and repair costs will, however, determine the actual cost of the pump during its lifetime. Charts are available to check the chemical compatibility and identify the most appropriate materials of construction for the pump.
The impact of the impeller material on the life of a pump under cavitation conditions is shown in Figure 1. As an example, changing from mild steel (reliability factor of 1.0) to stainless steel (reliability factor of 4.0) would increase the impeller life from cavitation damage by a factor of four. Hard coatings, such as certain ceramics, can also increase the impeller life under cavitating conditions.
Figure 1 Material Cavitation life factors
Pump Sizing and Performance Specifications: The desired pump discharge is needed to accurately size the piping system, determine friction head losses, construct a system curve, and select a pump and drive motor. Process requirements can be achieved by providing a constant flow rate, or by using a throttling valve or variable speed drives. Read More
Rotating machines have huge and important roles in our daily life although we may rarely think about them. Steam turbines at electrical power plants rotate the electrical generator shafts which produce electricity coming into our homes and offices. Driving to or from work, the reciprocating cycle in your vehicle’s internal combustion engine results in rotation of the transmission and the wheels of vehicles, while the electric car wheel operation is a result of induction motor rotation. If you get on an airplane, rotation of the turbo reactive gas turbine engine produces the effective thrust to sustain flight by moving, compressing and throwing the gas behind the plane. We can even find the useful effects of rotation in our kitchens when we are blending the food or washing our closes.
Although these rotating machines are different, the approaches to modelling their rotor dynamics are pretty much the same, since similar processes occur in rotating parts which differ in their vibrations from the non-rotating machines.
Do you remember the example of rotating washing machine? Have you ever seen it jumping on the floor trying to squeeze out your closet? We bet you have. This is the simplest example of the increased unbalance affecting the amplitudes of machine vibrations. Washing machines are designed to experience these noticeable vibrations during their operation without breaking. But the steam turbine or compressor rotors which have the tight clearances between the impellers and the casing can not boast of that leeway. In addition to that, the excessive vibrations significantly influence the machine’s useful life due to the increased fatigue. This is why the rotor dynamics predictions are one of the most important parts of rotating machine analyses. And although they may seem easier than comprehensive stress-strain investigations of machine components, in some cases the rotor dynamics analysis can be trickiest part.
Usually, the rotor dynamics analyses are divided into lateral and torsional stages depending on the nature of rotor response to be used. They are discussed in different types of standards (API [1], ISO [2], etc.). Let’s consider the example of the lateral vibrations of a 4 stage compressor rotor with an operational speed of 8856 rpm.
Fig. 1 – 4 Stage Compressor Rotor
This rotor rotates in the 4 pad tilting, pad oil film journal bearings. The characteristics of these bearings should be determined carefully to ensure that there will not be an excessive wear, heat generation or friction in them. Read More
Due to concerns about air travel’s impact on climate change, research and development into electric aircraft has been ongoing for several years. Within the last decade several startups as well as larger corporations have been developing electric or hybrid electric aircraft (Ros, 2017). The ultimate goal is to Conduct long (>500 miles), full-electric commercial flights with large aircrafts capable of carrying 100’s of passengers, but this will require at least 5-10 more years of development. Luckily, smaller electric aircraft designed for short-range flights (<500 miles) with anywhere from 1-20 passengers have already been tested successfully utilizing electric batteries, a hybrid-electric system and even a hydrogen fuel cell. With these advances, emission-free air travel is closer than you think.
Electric Aircraft
Examples of full-electric aircraft designs include the Airbus E-Fan 1.0 and E-Fan 1.1 (Airbus Group), shown in Figure 1. These two-person aircraft utilize two ducted, variable-pitch fans, shown in Figure 2. Each fan is powered by a 30-kW electric motor. The motors are powered by several lithium-ion battery packs stored in the wings. While the aircraft only provides an hour of flight time, the batteries can recharge in approximately one hour and can be easily be swapped in and out.
There are several reasons besides climate change why electric aircraft should be developed from a business perspective (Figure 3). Short and mid-range regional flights make up a significant portion of all flights around the world. The current flight range of electric aircraft is limited to these short and mid-range fights. Additionally, shorter flights spend relatively more time taking off and landing than cruising at high altitudes, which makes shorter trips less energy efficient. While short, regional flights are economically unattractive for large commercial aircraft, a smaller aircraft with less fuel consumption may provide a valuable alternative. Read More
Today’s simulation and analysis (S&A) tools allow engineers to study and verify system/machine properties and visualize the aerodynamic, thermodynamic, structural, and other physical properties without having to build a physical prototype. We can perform cooling secondary flow systems analysis in a gas turbine; a detailed performance study for a supercritical CO2 turbine/compressor; predict cavitation for industry a water pump/rocket turbopump; and so many more. Products and machines are becoming more and more complex. Unfortunately, engineers only run a handful of designs through the S&A process, due to the cost associated with limited computer resources and the time required to run simulations and to create complex 3D models of designs. Furthermore, verification and certification of system designs are often done using actual hardware—a costly and time-consuming endeavor. Considering these aspects, 1D and 3D simulations are significantly important. However, engineers need to determine the trade-off between 1D and 3D simulation.
Figure 1 AxSTREAM Platform with Modules from 0D to 3D including seamless geometry import into STAR-CCM+
1D Simulation
Imagine what’s required to generate one 3D design for a gas turbine secondary cooling flow system, and multiply it by 1,000 design alternatives. Even if we were to only use conceptual CAD models, this project would require extraordinary computing power and data storage—not to mention simulation and design expertise.
And so, even with the movement to bring more cloud-based S&A tools to market, resources required for 3D modeling will still result in very few designs being extensively explored, thanks to their complexity. Detailed low-dimensional models of system behavior can provide valuable insights into system performance and function thus guiding the design process. Read More
As a special tribute this Veterans Day, we decided to have a look at some of the most notable engines that have been used to propel military vehicles throughout history.
PW F135
Kicking off our list is the Pratt & Whitney 135 turbofan engine. The pride and joy of Pratt & Whitney’s military engine lineup, the 135 powers the US Military’s F35 Lightning II. Presently, two variants of the F135 are used in several different variants of the F35, although it should be noted that the F135 was developed specifically for the F35. The 3 engine variants are known as the F135-PW-100, the F135-PW-600, and the F135-PW-400, each for a different application of the F35. The 100 variant is used in the conventional take off and landing F35A, the 600 is used in the F135B for short take off and vertical landing F35B, and the 400 uses salt corrosion-resistant materials for the Naval variant F35C.
A Lockheed Martin F35A in fight, and an F35C taking off from the USS Abraham Lincoln
The F135 is capable of 28,000 lbf of thrust with the afterburner capability pushing thrust all the way to a whopping 43,000 lbf of thrust, making the Lightning II a supersonic STOVL aircraft suited to a wide variety of applications, as seen in the above illustrations. At the heart of the Pratt F135 are 3 fan stages, 6 compressor stages, and 3 turbine stages. In the STOVL variant, the F135-600 uses the same core components, but is also coupled to a drive shaft which connects the engine to the lift fans which were originally developed by Rolls-Royce, and give the Lightning the ability to hover, perform short distance takeoffs, and vertical landings.
A Royal Air Force RAF F35B Lightning II performing a vertical landing on a Royal Navy carrier.
The F35 by Pratt & Whitney and in turn the F35 Lightning II by Lockheed Martin represent the cutting edge in military aviation, and are the centerpieces of Pratt and Lockheed respectively. The Lightning variants and this line of turbofan engines will be in service with several branches of the US military and its allies around the world for the foreseeable future, with more iterations of the F135 to come. Read More
Even in today’s age of underwater nuclear power, the majority of the world’s submarines still use diesel engines as their main source of mechanical power, as they have done since the turn of the century. A diesel engine must operate at its optimum performance to ensure a long and reliable life of engine components and to achieve peak efficiency. To operate or keep running a diesel engine at its optimum performance, the correct lubrication is required. General motors V16-278A type engine is normally found on fleet type submarines and is shown in Figure 1. This engine has two banks of 8 cylinders, each arranged in a V-design with 40 degree between banks. It is rated at 1600 bhp at 750 rpm and equipped with mechanical or solid type injection and has a uniform valve and port system of scavenging[1].
Figure 1. GM V16-278A, Submarine Diesel Engine. SOURCE: [1]Lubrication system failure is the most expensive and frequent cause of damage, followed by incorrect maintenance and poor fuel management. Improper lubrication oil management combined with abrasive particle contamination cause the majority of damage. Therefore, an efficient lubrication system is essential to minimize risk of engine damage.
The purpose of an efficient lubrication system in a submarine’s diesel engine is to:
Prevent metal to metal contact between moving parts in the engine;
Aid in engine cooling by removing heat generated due to friction;
Form a seal between the piston rings and the cylinder walls; and
Aid in keeping the inside of the engine free of any debris or impurities which are introduced during engine operation.
All of these requirements should be met for an efficient lubrication system. To achieve this, the necessary amount of lubricant oil flow rate with appropriate pressure should circulate throughout the entire system, which includes each component such as bearings, gears, piston cooling, and lubrication. If the required amount of flow rate does not flow or circulate properly to each corner of the system or rotating components, then cavitation will occur due to adverse pressure and excessive heat will be generated due to less mass flow rate. This will lead to major damage of engine components and reduced lifetime. Read More
This is an excerpt from a technical paper, presented at the ASME Turbo Expo 2020 online conference and written by Leonid Moroz, Maksym Burlaka, Tishun Zhang, and Olga Altukhova. Follow the link at the end of the post to read the full study!
Introduction
The attempts to simulate transient and steady-state sCO2 cycles off-design performance were performed by numerous authors [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Some of them studied the dynamic behavior of regulators, some studied different control strategies or off-design behavior in different scenarios, which definitely has certain utility in the development of the reliable technology of sCO2 cycle simulation. Nevertheless, they used rather simplified models of components, especially turbomachinery and heat exchangers, which are of crucial importance to correctly simulate cycle performance.
The authors of this paper attempted to apply the digital twin concept to a simulation of off-design and part-load modes of the sCO2 bottoming cycle considering real machine characteristics and performance, which nobody tried to apply in this area.
On IGTC Japan 2015, SoftInWay Inc. has published a paper “Evaluation of Gas Turbine Exhaust Heat Recovery Utilizing Composite Supercritical CO2 Cycle”. The paper considered combinations of different bottoming sCO2 cycles for a specific middle power gas turbine. It mainly studied the advantages of different types of sCO2 cycles to increase the power production utilizing GTU waste heat.
The present paper is a further study based on that so the Cycle 2 [6] from that previous paper was selected as the sCO2 bottoming PGU layout in the present paper for subsequent analysis. The cycle is a combination of recompression cycle and simple cycle which offers 16.13 MW as output. GE LM6000-PH DLE gas turbine, was used as the heat source for bottoming PGU. According to GE official brochure [7], the GE LM6000 offers 40 MW to over 50 MW with up to 42% efficiency and 99% fleet reliability in a flexible, compact package design for utility, industrial and oil and gas applications. GE LM6000-PH DLE provides 53.26 MW output with exhaust temperature at 471 ℃ and exhaust flow at 138.8 kg/s. (This information came from GE products specification from 2015. It appears that GE continuously modifying the parameters of its turbines along with the naming of different modifications. Therefore, today’s parameters and configuration names might be slightly different comparing to 2015) Exhaust gas pressure was assumed to be 0.15 MPa. These parameters were taken to analyze the bottoming PGU and are presented below in TABLE 1.
TABLE 1: SELECTED SET OF GE LM6000-PH DLE PARAMETERS
The digital twin (DT) concept is the developing technology that allows simulation of object behavior during its life cycle or in specified time due to changing ambient conditions, for example. The DT is applicable for performance tuning, digital machine building, healthcare, smart cities, etc [8] that allows decreasing the time and costs of development and optimize the object on the developing stage. GE has raised DT concepts for power plants to continually improves its ability to model and track the state of the plants [9].
In the context of this paper, DT is a simulation system comprised of physicist-based models organized in a special algorithmic structure that allows simulating the behavior of sCO2 PGU under alternating ambient conditions and grid demands.
The DT in this study was created utilizing AxSTREAM® Platform, which includes multiple software tools. The following software tools were utilized in this study: AxCYCLE™ was used to perform cycle thermodynamic calculation; solution generator in AxSTREAM® helped with finding possible machine geometry with given boundary conditions when performing preliminary design for compressors and turbines at design point; parameters and performance of turbomachinery including mass flow rate, pressure, power, efficiencies, etc. were calculated by Meanline/Streamline solver in AxSTREAM® for design and off-design conditions; AxSTREAM NET™ is a 1D system modeling solver and it was introduced here to simulate performance of heat exchangers (HEX) and pressure drop in the pipes involved in the cycle; AxSTREAM ION™ was used to integrate all modules and tools together in one simulation system. Read More
Centrifugal fans are a type of turbomachine equipment widely used in all kinds of modern and domestic life. Centrifugal fans were developed as highly efficient machines, and the design is still based on various empirical and semi empirical rules proposed by fan designers. Due to these various rules, there are different methodologies used to design impellers and other components.
Centrifugal fans consist of an impeller in a casing with a spirally shaped contour, shown in Figure 1 (left side). The air enters the impeller in an axial direction and is discharged at the impeller outer periphery. The air flow moves along the centrifugal direction (or radial direction). Centrifugal fans can generate relatively high pressures, as compared with axial flow fans. For axial flow fans, the pressure rise is small, about be few inches of water.
Figure 1 Radial Fan and Static Pressure, Shaft Power V/s Volume Flow Curves for Different Types of Blades
Generally centrifugal fans have three types of blade: forward blade, backward blade and radial blade. The characteristic curve of these three kinds of centrifugal fans is shown on right side in Figure 1.
Sizing Using Cordier Diagram
Centrifugal fans (most turbomachines) can be classified based on specific speed (Ns) and specific diameters (Ds) as shown in Figure 2. Specific speed is a criterion at which a fan of unspecified diameter would run to give unit volume flow and pressure. The correlation for specific speed and specific diameter can be seen here:
where, ‘N’ is rotational speed (RPM), ‘Q’ is flow rate (ft3/sec), ‘H’ is head (ft), ‘D’ is diameter (ft) Read More
The release of combustible gas during the interaction of metals and acids was observed as early as the 16th century. That is, during the formation of chemistry as a science. The famous English scientist Henry Cavendish had studied the substance since 1766, and gave it the name “combustible air”. When burned, this gas produced water. Unfortunately, the scientist’s adherence to the theory of phlogiston (the theory that suggested the existence of a fire-type element in materials) prevented him from coming to the correct conclusions.
In 1783 the French chemist and naturalist A. Lavoisier, together with the engineer J. Meunier, and with the help of special gas meters carried out the synthesis of water, and then its analysis by means of decomposition of water vapor with hot iron. Thus, scientists were able to come to the correct conclusions, and dismantle the phlogiston theory. They found that “combustible air” is not only a part of water but can also be obtained from it. In 1787, Lavoisier put forward the assumption that the gas under study is a simple substance and, accordingly, belongs to the number of primary chemical elements. He named it hydrogene (from the Greek words hydor – water + gennao – I give birth), that is, “giving birth to water”.
In a free state and under normal conditions, hydrogen is a gas, and is colorless, odorless and tasteless. Hydrogen has almost 14.5 times mass less than air. It usually exists in combination with other elements, such as oxygen in water, carbon in methane, and organic compounds. Because hydrogen is chemically extremely active, it is rarely present as an unbound element. Read More
![Figure 1. Common Types of Bearing Examples. SOURCE: [1]](https://blog.softinway.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Figure-1.-Common-Types-of-Bearing-Example.jpg?54f506&54f506)
![Figure 1. GM V16-278A, Submarine Diesel Engine. SOURCE: [1]](https://blog.softinway.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GM-V16-278A-Submarine-Diesel-Engine.png?54f506&54f506)
