Study of the endurance performance of composite journal bearings under the oil cut situation

In this work, composite journal bearings were fabricated using a carbon-fiber/phenol composite and carbon-fiber/epoxy composite to solve the seizure problem of a metallic journal bearing under the oil cut situation. Friction coefficients of two composite materials were measured through the wear test under the same conditions as the oil cut situation, and the material properties were measured at the elevated temperature of the oil cut situation. Next, the stress distribution of the composite journal bearings was investigated by using finite element analysis (FEA) with respect to the friction coefficients between the rotor and bearing, and the Tsai-Wu failure index was calculated to investigate the possibility of failure. To verify the failure analysis results, the oil cut tests for the composite journal bearings were conducted using the industrial test bench. The oil cut test results indicate that the carbon fiber/epoxy composite journal bearing is more durable than the carbon fiber/phenol composite journal bearing.