The Effect of Particles on the Lubrication Characteristics of Shallow Groove Water Lubricated Thrust Bearings During Start‐Up Process

ABSTRACT Solid particles such as sediment are inevitably present in natural water, and water‐lubricated bearings with filtration devices can only filter relatively large solid particles. The smaller solid particles will enter the friction pair between the bearing bush and the thrust ring, which will affect the start‐up process of the bearing. Therefore, a shallow groove water lubricated thrust bearing is proposed that includes this effect. Considering the elastic deformation of the bearing bush, the transient average flow Reynolds equation, asperity contact equation, energy equation and the wear equation are solved iteratively. Then, the equations are combined using Newton second law to construct the numerical model and transient wear model of the bearing start‐up process, and the influence of particle volume fraction on the lubrication performance of the bearing start‐up process is analysed. The influence of particle volume fraction on the start‐up process of the water lubricated bearing is verified by friction bench test. The results show that within a certain range, larger particle volume fraction can effectively improve the bearing lubrication performance during the start‐up process, and reduce the asperity contact and friction loss. The experimental results are basically consistent with the numerical simulation results.