Temperature Field-Based Detection of Oil Supply Failure in Plain Bearings Considering Varying Component Sizes

Plain bearings are widely used in heavy-duty applications, e.g., wind turbine drivetrains or ship propulsion systems. Plain bearings offer high load-carrying capacity and good damping, but abnormal events such as oil supply failure (OSF) can rapidly damage the bearing and cause failure of the entire drivetrain. An adequate oil supply is essential for the operation of the plain bearing. A failure of the oil supply can cause fatal failure of the bearing due to adhesive wear within a matter of seconds. Existing condition monitoring systems (CMS) for plain bearings generally cannot detect OSF in time, or require costly and complex installation, limiting their practical applicability. This paper presents temperature field measurement (TFM) as a simple, low-cost CMS approach for early OSF detection. The results presented within this work demonstrate that TFM detects the onset of OSF within 30 s of oil supply interruption, at least 30 s before a rise in friction torque can be detected in the corresponding test bearing. The findings demonstrate that TFM is a valid, simple, and effective method for the timely detection of OSF, offering a practical alternative to existing CMS approaches for heavy-duty plain bearing applications.