• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제20권3호
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• pp.140-144
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• 2004

Water-lubrication ball bearings are required to install in aqueous medium where water is used as coolant or working fluid. However water-lubricated frictional characteristics of stainless steel ball bearing is not will known compared to oil-lubricated frictional characteristics. Furthermore study on friction at high temperature is rare because bearing maintenance strategy for water-lubricated or chemicals-lubricated bearings of equipment is mostly based on change of failed bearings and parts. Ball bearings and ball screws are used to transmit power in the control rod drive mechanism for an integral reactor and are lubricated with high temperature and high pressure chemically-controlled water. Bearings and power transmitting mechanical elements for a nuclear reactor require high reliability and high performance during estimated lifetime, and their performance should be verified. In this paper, experimental research results of frictional characteristics of water-lubricated ball bearing are reported.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.278-282
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• 2005

Deep groove ball bearing is installed in a control element of an integral nuclear reactor, where water is used as coolant and lubricant. This bearing is made of STS440C stainless steel for the raceways and the balls to use in radioactive environment and water. It is known that the retainer design affects ball bearing operability and endurance life, however there is no verified retainer design and material for water lubricated ball bearing. Four kinds of retainers are manufactured for the endurance test of water lubricated deep groove ball bearing. Three of them are commercially developed types and the other is designed for this research. It is verified that ball bearings with steel pressed and general plastic retainer can not survive to required life in the water, however bearings with machined type and cylinder type retainer can survive. This proves that one of the major design parameters for water lubricated ball bearing is retainer type and material. In this paper, experimental research of endurance test for water-lubricated ball bearing are reported.

• 한국윤활학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국윤활학회 2003년도 학술대회지
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• pp.324-328
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• 2003

Water-lubricated frictional characteristics of stainless steel ball bearing is not well known compared to oil-lubricated frictional characteristics. Furthermore study on friction at high temperature is rare because bearing maintenance strategy for water-lubricated or chemicals-lubricated bearings of equipment is mostly based on change of failed bearings and parts. Ball bearings and ball screw are installed on the power transmission for a developing integral reactor and these are lubricated with high temperature and high pressure chemically-controlled pure water. Bearings and power transmitting mechanical elements for an atomic reactor needs high reliability. and high performance during estimated lifetime, and it should be verified. In this paper, experimental research results of frictional characteristics of water-lubricated ball bearing as a preliminary investigation.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.218-222
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• 2013

Water-lubricated ball bearings consist of rolling elements, an inner raceway, an outer raceway, a retainer, and an operating lubricant. In the water environment, ball bearings are required to sustain high loads at high speeds under poorly lubricated conditions. For the analysis of bearing behavior, friction torque is considered as the main factor at various flow rates, rotating speeds, and roughnesses between the rolling element and raceways. When the bearing operates at high rotating speeds, the friction torque between the raceway and rolling elements increases considerably. This frictional torque is an important factor affecting bearing reliability and life cycle duration. For understanding the flow conditions in the inner part of the bearing, this study focuses on the flow around the rotating and revolving rolling elements. A simple model of fluid flow inside the ball bearing is designed using the commercial CFD program ANSYS.

• KSTLE International Journal
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• 제4권2호
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• pp.43-46
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• 2003

Water-lubricated frictional characteristics of a stainless steel ball bearings are not well known compared to the oil-lubricated frictional characteristics. Furthermore a study on friction at a high temperature is rare because the bearing maintenance strategy for water-lubricated or chemicals-lubricated bearings of equipment is generally based on the replacement of the failed bearings-and parts. Ball bearings and ball screw are installed in the power transmission for the newly developing integral reactor and these are lubricated with chemically-controlled pure water at a high temperature and a high pressure. Bearings and power transmitting mechanical elements for an atomic reactor requires high reliability and high performance during the estimated lifetime, and it should be verified. In this paper, experimental research results of the frictional characteristics for water-lubricated ball bearings are presented as a preliminary investigation.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제28권6호
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• pp.278-282
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• 2012

Various bearings such as deep-groove ball bearings, angular-contact ball bearings, and roller bearings are used to support the load and to lubricate between the shaft and the housing. The bearings of potential rolling systems in a turbo pump are the deep-groove ball bearings as comparing with the bearings with rolling elements such as cylindrical rollers, tapered cylindrical rollers, and needle rollers. The deep-groove ball bearings consist of rolling elements, an inner raceway, an outer raceway and a retainer that maintain separation and help to lubricate the rolling element that is rotating in the raceways. In the case of water-lubricated ball bearings, however, fluid friction between the ball and raceways is affected by the entry direction of flow, rotation speed, and flow rate. In addition, this friction is the key factor affecting the bearing life cycles and reliability. In this paper, the characteristics of flow conditions corresponding to a deep-groove ball bearing are investigated numerically, with particular focus on the friction distribution on the rolling element, in order to extend the analysis to the area that experiences solid friction. A simple analysis model of fluid flow inside the water-lubricated ball bearing is analyzed with CFD, and the flow characteristics at high rotation speeds are presented.

• 한국윤활학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국윤활학회 2002년도 proceedings of the second asia international conference on tribology
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• pp.289-290
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• 2002

Stainless steel ball bearings are used in the control element drive mechanism and driving mechanisms such as step motor and gear boxes for the integral nuclear reactor, SMART. The bearings operate in pressurized pure water (primary coolant) at high temperature and should be lubricated with only this water because it is impossible to supply greases or any additional lubricant since the whole nuclear rector system should be perfectly sealed and the coolant cannot contain ingredients for bearing lubrication. Temperature of water changes from room temperature to about 120 degree Celsius and pressure rises up to 15MPa in the nuclear reactor. It can be anticipated that the frictional characteristics of the ball bearings changes according to the operating conditions, however little data are available in the literature. It is found that friction coefficient of 440C stainless steel itself does not change sharply according to temperature variation from the former research, and the friction coefficient is about 0.45 at low speed range. In this research frictional characteristics of the assembled ball bearings are investigated. A special tribometer is used to simulate the axial loading and the bearing operating conditions, temperature and pressure in the driving mechanism in the nuclear reactor. Highly purified water is used as lubricant ‘ and the water is heated up to 120 degree Celsius and pressurized to 15MPa. Friction force is monitored by the torque transducer.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.25-33
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• 2011

Rolling contact ball bearings are utilized almost exclusively for liquid propellant rocket engine turbopump. Turbopump ball bearings are required to endure high speed and high load for a poor lubricated condition in cryogenic environment. To evaluate bearing heat generation performance, friction torque is investigated as a function of rotation speed, bearing load and cooling flow rate through an experimental study using water coolants. Radial and axial loads are simultaneously applied to the test bearing by gas pressurized cylinder rod. Endurance performance of bearing has been also verified under the bearing required load for operating condition during total accumulated test time 2,100 sec.