Abstract
The lubrication characteristics of high-speed ball bearings have been investigated empirically using 45mm bore split inner ring ball bearings employed in small industrial gas turbine engines with oil-jet lubrication method. For the close structural simulation, experiments carried out with bearing mounting supports of real engines, such as bearing housings and oil nozzle assemblies with squeeze film dampers. Thus the results of tests can be directly applied to the design and the development of gas turbine engines. Testing was done by varying operating speeds, axial load on bearings, and lubricant flow rates. During testing, the temperature of bearing at outer-ring face, the power consumption of the driving motor, and the rotating resistance of the bearing were measured. From this study, the representative factors for lubrication characteristics at high speed was found, and the most important one was not operating speed but axial load up to 1.95 million dmN speed and 2969 N axial load. Furthermore, the detailed variation of the rotational resistance of the bearing could be visualized by measuring the change of the radial load under the bearing supports. The rotational resistance consists of the frictional resistance and the bearing-cavity oil resistance.