Five Pad Tilting Pad Bearing Design and Lateral Vibration Characteristics of Small Gas Turbine Supported by It and Roller Bearing

In tilting pad bearing design process, the selection of the proper configuration type of either a Load-Between-Pad (LBP) or Load-On-Pad (LOP) as well as preload and pivot offset conditions is to be carefully considered. Also the bearing needs to be designed in order to be suited for the rotor-bearing system and operating condition. In this paper, it is observed that the static and dynamic characteristics of a five pad tilting pad bearing for the LBP and LOP configurations are influenced by the variation of preload and pivot offset. In this context, rotor dynamic analysis of the 5 MW industrial gas turbine supported by the tilting pad bearing at the front and roller bearing at the rear is carried out based on the dynamic coefficients of the tilting pad bearing investigated. The result shows that two rigid body critical modes experience various changes according to the influence of the tilting pad bearing uniquely applied to one side of this machine. Mainly, the second critical speed, the rigid body mode of conical shape with high whirling in the tilting pad bearing, is significantly changed by preload and pivot offset regardless of the LBP and LOP configurations. And the first critical mode, the rigid body mode of conical shape with high whirling in the roller bearing, is sensitively affected by preload applied to the LOP configuration and by its asymmetric dynamic properties.