터보기기용 포일 저널 베어링 개발

Development of Foil Journal Bearing for Turbo Machinery

Foil bearings have been successfully used for small high speed rotors, such as ACM(Air Cycle Machine), turbo charger, turbo compressor, high speed motor, etc. Recently advanced researches are concentrated on the high load capacity and the extreme temperature foil bearings to extend the application boundary. Some bearings are already adopted into cryogenic machines and micro gas turbines. In this paper, a foil journal bearing designed for high load capacity, which is under development, is introduced. The bearing is for the turbo refrigerator which has a rotor of 18${\~}$25 kgf rotating at 23,000${\~}$38,000 rpm. This application is well beyond conventional spectrum of foil bearings because the rotor is relatively heavy and the rotational speed is low. Therefore, the development is challenging. The foil bearing is a bump type, the size is 60mm in diameter and 50mm in length, the operating fluid is air and rotational speed is 26,000 rpm. In-house software was developed and used for bearing design. Tested maximum load capacity is 80kgf, 0.62 in terms of load capacity coefficient, and testing is being continued.