Innovative 3D Measuring Technique for Identifying Geometrical Imperfections and Wear in Small Marine Stern Tube Liners

Abstract Increasingly stringent requirements for the durability and reliability of ship components and new standards for environmental protection have resulted in the use of increasingly sophisticated technologies in the shipbuilding industry. The components of a ship’s propulsion system have been meticulously analysed and improved over several decades. The durability and reliability of the sliding bearings for a ship’s propeller shaft depend on the precision of manufacturing and assembly of large elements, and virtually the same methods have been used to measure diameters and internal bore shape analysis for decades. This paper proposes a method of assessing the technical condition of the ship’s propeller shaft bearing bushes, which enables precise knowledge about possible defects to be obtained at the stage of machining or assembly; this approach also makes it possible to assess the degree of wear of the bearing bush. The essence of this method is contact scanning of the surface geometry, thanks to which it is possible to build a three-dimensional model of a specific element and then to assess its technical condition. The proposed method may be especially important for modern solutions such as sliding bearings with double slope geometry.