Numerical and Experimental Study for Unsteady Oil Film Thickness of the Rotating Cylinder Chamber Wall

Abstract

The oil film thickness on the bearing chamber wall directly affects the wall heat transfer efficiency, so a fundamental study on the motion of oil film on the rotating cylinder has been conducted to this end. On the one hand, the rotating cylinder test rig was designed, and an ultrasonic measurement system was established to measure the dynamic oil film thickness. On the other hand, the unsteady oil film heat and mass transfer movement model was also established, and the numerical simulation to solve oil film motion by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) commercial software was carried out. Meanwhile, on the basis of study on the oil film formation process and film thickness verification, the oil film distributions on the chamber wall with rotation speed and oil flow rate were analyzed and studied. Results show that the oil film on the rotating chamber wall experiences a development process from the oil film formation to basic stability, about 1.0 s in this paper. And comparison between the numerical and experimental data shows that the maximum error between experimental data and numerical simulation is 7.76%. Moreover, for the oil film distributions in the stable state, oil film thickness shows a trend of decreasing with the increasing of rotation speed, but increasing with the increasing of oil flow rate. The research here will provide the basis for subsequent study of the interaction between oil film motion and the wall heat transfer.