TRIBOMONITORING OF THE COMPRESSOR BEARING OF A GAS TURBINE UNIT

A gas turbine unit is an object of increased danger, therefore, timely forecasting of repair and replacement of its components is an urgent task. The paper presents the main provisions of tribomonitoring concept of sliding bearings of gas turbine superchargers in order to predict their wear. Fluctuations in gas turbine units are considered from the point of view of vibration appearing in the bearing. A correlation graph of the wear curve and vertical vibrations is presented, showing the relationship between the inclination angles of the run-in curve and vertical vibration. A method to determine the maximum permissible wear of the bearing liner is proposed, based on the analysis of the experimental Abbott-Firestone curves before and after the wear. It is shown that it is sufficient to obtain a single typical Abbott-Firestone curve after wear for bearings of the same manufacturer and of one series. A technique to find out the relationship of wear particles in the lubricant flow obtained from sensors by the granulometric method and the wear limit value of the bearing liner according to the Abbott-Firestone curve is presented. It is shown that in order to find out the relationship between vibration and wear in practice, it is necessary to construct a combined vibration graph and obtain a point of wear value at the moment of maximum permissible vibration.