Technical Paper
Digital High-Speed Photography of Cavitation in Journal Bearings
2023-09-29
2023-32-0163
This paper presents current research comparing gaseous and vaporous cavitation in lubricant flows obtained by means of digital high-speed photography in un-precedented detail. Hydrodynamic journal bearings are compact and guarantee a nearly wear- resistant operation. These features make journal bearings the first choice for many applications. However, under particular operational conditions, e.g. a highly dynamic load, cavitation can occur which can lead to bearing failures. For the selected case of suction cavitation these conditions are characterized by high eccentricity combined with a rapid variation of the lubricating film thickness. The work at hand presents a new experimental approach to study suction cavitation in a scaled bearing model. Moreover, mechanical and fluid dynamic similarity laws are described which enable the transfer of bearing operation conditions into the model experiment and vice versa.