Application of piezoelectric composites to control operation of a gas foil bearing – prototype design and testing

Abstract

Essential parts of rotating machineries are supporting nodes, i.e., bearing systems. They assure required rotational degrees of freedom and feature desired load carrying capacity. Following the specificity of a technical solution considered, various types of bearings may be taken into account to effectively address the requirements regarding the speed and load. Specifically, gas foil bearings (GFB) are used in high-speed and lightly-loaded rotating machineries, e.g., auxiliary power units. In fact, they can operate up to several hundreds of thousands rpm, also for a wide temperature range. The current work reports an application of piezoelectric composites to control operation of a GFB. The authors present the developed bearing’s prototype installation which is equipped with a specialized multifunctional structural component that advantageously allows to both characterize GFB’s operational parameters and modify them. The experimental results confirm the usability of the proposed actively-controlled configuration of a GFB.