A turbo pump unit provides high pressure oxygen and fuel in a space shuttle main engine (SSME). This paper focused on rotordynamics, investigating its characteristics based on a numerical simulation of turbo pump finite element model. Speeds up to 50,000 rpm are considered, as well as the special problems related to elastic-ring, seal hydrodynamic force, shroud force and clearance-excitation farce. The rotordynamic prediction shows that the elastic-ring which is inserted between the casing and the outer race of ball bearing allows far an acceptable separate margin of first critical speed. Additionally, the results show that the floating ring seal, which have a peculiar ring, adds substantial stiffness and damping to the system as well as exhibits superior performance in terms of rotordynamic stability of system compared to the plain seal.

Abrasion in fretting wear mechanism is studied experimentally with the specimens of two different shapes of spacer grid spring and fuel tubes of a nuclear fuel. Reciprocating sliding wear test has been carried out in the environment of air and water at room temperature. Especially, third body abrasion is referred to for explaining the wear region expansion found during the slip displacement increase with constant normal contact farce. It is found that the expansion behaviour depends on the contact shape. The small clearance between the tube and spring seems to be the preferable region of the wear particle accumulation, which causes third body abrasion of the non-contact area. Even in water environment the third body abrasion occurs apparently. Since the abrasion on the clearance contributes wear volume, the influence of the contact shape on the severity of third body abrasion should be considered to improve the grid spring design in the point of restraining wear damage of a nuclear fuel.

The electrical and rheological properties of a chitosan malonate suspension in silicone oil was investigated by varying the electric fields, volume fractions of particles, and shear rates, respectively, The chitosan malonate susepnsion showed a typical electrorheological (ER) response caused by the polarizability of an amide polar group and shear yield stress due to the formation of multiple chains upon application of an electric field. The shear stress fur the suspension exhibited a linear dependence on the volume fraction and an electric field power of 1.88. On the basis of the experimental results, the newly synthesized chitosan malonate suspension was found to be an anhydrous ER fluid.

Recently, fluid dynamic bearings (EDBs) have important applications in miniature rotating machines such as those found in the computer information storage industry, due to their outstanding low acoustic noise and NRRO (Non-Repeatable Run Out) characteristics. This research investigates the dynamic behavior of fluid dynamic bearings composed of hydrodynamic herringbone groove journal and spiral groove thrust bearing. The five degrees of freedom of FDB are considered to describe the real motion of a general rotor bearing system. The Reynolds equation and five nonlinear equations of motion for the dynamic behavior are solved simultaneously, The incompressible Reynolds equation is solved by using the finite element method (FEM) in order to calculate the pressure distribution in a fluid film and the five equations of motion by using the Runge-Kutta method. The reaction forces and moments are obtained by integrating the pressure along the fluid film. Numerical results are validated by comparing with the previously published experimental and numerical results. As a result the dynamic behavior of FDB spindle such as orbit, floating height, and angular orbit is investigated by considering the conical motion under the static and dynamic load conditions.

The basic principles of tribo-systems and study method based on tribe-systems are introduced in the paper, Based on the viewpoint of tribe-systems, the experiment on tribology characteristics of friction lining material in multi-rope friction hoist is carried out. The research result shows: tribology characteristics of friction material are not its inherent characteristic but system characteristics of the tribo-systems, the“sliding-rope”of multi-rope friction hoist can be divided into“safety sliding-rope”and“fault sliding-rope”, study on friction material only based on characteristic of system where friction material exists possesses practical significance.

Sliding and impact/sliding wear test in room temperature air and water were performed to evaluate the effect of spring shapes on the wear mechanism of a fuel rod. The main focus was to quantitatively compare the wear behavior of a fuel rod with different support springs (i.e. two concaves, a convex and a flat shape) using a ratio of wear volume to worn area (De)-The results indicated that the wear volumes at each spring condition were varied with the change of test environment and loading type. However, the relationship between the wear volume and worn area was determined by only spring shape even though the wear tests were carried out at different test conditions. From the above results, the optimized spring shape which has more wear-resistant could be determined using the analysis results of the relation between the variation of De and worn surface observations in each test condition.