Impact of Screens Around Bearings on the Flow and Heat Transfer in the Vent and Scavenge Oil Pipes in Bearing Chambers

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate, first, the effects of screens introduced around bearings and, second, the use of protruded instead of flush installed vent pipes. The investigation focuses on the air and oil flow distributions and on the heat transfer in the scavenge and the vent pipes in an aeroengine bearing chamber. The flow distribution has an impact on the pipe’s wall temperature distribution with the likelihood of generating hot spots. High temperatures may cause substantial effects on the health of the lubrication system. Problems may range from oil quality degradation to oil self ignition. A steady state CFD analysis of the heat transfer involving the two-phase air and oil flow in these pipes is performed using the ANSYS CFX package. It was demonstrated that whereas screens around bearings reduce the parasitic losses and vent protrusion reduces the oil flow to the air/oil separator, however, due to the oil flow distribution the thermal effects may lead to high material temperatures and to malfunctions in the engine’s lube system.