Active Tilting-Pad Bearings (Paperback)

Traditional fluid-film bearings are passive devices since they cannot adjust their dynamic behavior in response to changes in the operating conditions of the rotating machine. To overcome this deficiency and improve machine stability and performance, active components (i.e., sensors and actuators) can be introduced in the fluid-film bearing. A promising fluid-film bearing candidate for active operation is the tilting-pad bearing. This book - the first of its kind - discusses two types of active tilting-pad bearings and their feedback control. The first type uses linear actuators to radially translate each pad. The second type relies on direct actuation of the tilt angle of each pad. Nonlinear dynamic models and model-based control laws are developed for both active bearings. Numerical simulations and/or experiments on a test rig are used to justify the models and evaluate the performances of the active bearings. This book is an invaluable resource to researchers, graduate students, and engineers in control systems, mechatronics, and bearings.