Heavy Load Conditions Research Articles

Effects of double-sided textures matching on friction and wear performance in reciprocating contact interface

With increasing demands for friction reduction and wear resistance in heavy-duty diesel engines, the design of surface textures in reciprocating contact zone of the cylinder liner and piston ring (CLPR) has been a major concern. Through designed orthogonal tests for optimizing the double-sided textured CLPR, a maximum reduction in the friction coefficient of 12.63 % was achieved for the superior double-sided textured CLPR compared to the untextured surface, with corresponding reductions in the wear depth of the cylinder liner and piston ring of 16.73 % and 18.25 %, respectively. The relative position variation between the CLPR microtextures at the sliding contact area caused different stress values and stress distribution. Compared to the inferior double-sided textured CLPR, superior double-sided textured CLPR with lower stress concentration and symmetrical distribution within the contact area generated smoother and flatter worn platforms and non-spalling dimple edges with less abrasive wear. It can provide some insight into the matching design of double-sided CLPR surfaces under heavy load conditions.

A power-efficient fast-transient OCL-LDO with adaptive super source follower and active capacitor compensation management

This paper presents a flipped voltage follower (FVF) based output-capacitor-less low-dropout regulator (OCL-LDO) with fast transient response, high power supply rejection (PSR), and low quiescent current for noise-sensitive circuits in internet-of-things (IoTs). An adaptive super source follower (ASSF) is proposed to effectively reduce the output impedance of the voltage buffer under heavy-loading conditions while keeping a low quiescent current under light-loading conditions. The active capacitor compensation management (ACCM) is proposed to solve the charge-sharing problem caused by the floating capacitors in the dynamic capacitor compensation circuit. The proposed OCL-LDO has been designed and fabricated in 22-nm CMOS technology. It can stabilize with load current ranging from 0 to 12 mA while consuming only 4.8-μA quiescent current. when the load current steps from 0.1 to 10 mA within 3.8 ns, the measured voltage undershoot is 55 mV and the recovery time is about 60 ns.

Gear contact fatigue prediction under mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication with ellipsoidal asperity rough surface: Experimental and numerical investigation

A three-dimensional(3D) line-contact mixed lubrication model and contact fatigue life prediction model for gears are established, considering the elastoplastic contact of ellipsoidal asperities and their interactions. The localized lubrication states across the actual 3D rough surfaces are visually depicted. The direct asperity contact pressures calculation exhibits greater accuracy and universality. The proposed mixed lubrication model can be applied accurately and efficiently to heavy-load conditions. The synergistic mechanisms of multi-scale surface integrity parameters, such as surface morphology-lubrication coupling, hardness gradient, and residual stress, on gear contact fatigue has been revealed. The results reveal that surface roughness significantly affects the competitive failure mechanism between surface-initiated micropitting and subsurface-initiated macropitting. The increase in surface compressive residual stress is more sensitive to the enhancement of near-surface and subsurface fatigue lives, compared to the increase of peak residual stress and the depth of peak residual stress. The proposed physics-based gear contact fatigue life prediction model has been validated through gear contact fatigue experiments under various operating conditions. The maximum deviation between the predicted and experimental fatigue lives is within 10%. This paper presents theoretical methodologies and data-driven support for optimizing the design and manufacturing processes of gears, specifically focusing on enhancing anti-fatigue properties.

Wear mechanism study of rocket sled shoe material 30CrMnSiNi2A

The material used for the rocket sleds in this study was 30CrMnSiNi2A. The research focused on examining the wear patterns and elemental distribution of the 30CrMnSiNi2A alloy under high-speed (34.56 m/s, 69.12 m/s, 101 m/s) and heavy-load (150–600 N) conditions through both experimental and simulation methods. A conceptual wear model was developed by integrating experimental results with numerical outcomes. At speeds of 34.56 m/s and 69.12 m/s, the friction coefficient and wear rate decreased with increasing applied pressure. At 101 m/s, the friction coefficient was less influenced by pressure, whereas the wear rate increased with increasing pressure. Simulation results show that under a load of 600 N, the von Mises stress consistently increased with increasing speed.

The role of charge reactivity in ammonia/diesel dual fuel combustion in compression ignition engine

This study investigates the combustion characteristics of diesel–NH3–air mixture in compression ignition engine. Three different levels of ammonia energy ration (AER) were used for the investigation: 0 % AER (pure diesel), 30 % AER, and 50 % AER. Increasing AER leads to a rise in the initial peak of apparent heat release rate and promotes the prevalence of premixed combustion. Numerical simulations effectively capture the abrupt increase in maximum cylinder pressure (Pmax) from 7.4 to 7.9 MPa as AER increases from 0 to 30 %. Additionally, raising AER from 0 to 30 % extends a high-temperature region externally in the squish zone, attributed to the higher knocking propensity of the 30 % AER premixed charge. The ammonia-assisted diesel accomplish advanced diesel direct injection timing (SOID) at both heavy and medium load conditions. Under light load conditions, an increase in ITE is observed for AER = 50 % as SOID varies from −4 °CA to −10 °CA (ATDC). For medium and high load conditions, ITE monotonically increases with advancing SOID. The maximum ITE of 44.5 % is achieved at SOID = −12 °CA (ATDC) and AER = 30 %.

Configuration design of movable heavy-duty reconfigurable posture adjustment platform with dual motion modes

AbstractThe existing single-mode posture adjustment equipment for solar wing docking is only suitable for a limited number of satellite dimensions; it could not meet the diverse development trends of satellite models. The working range requirements are different when different-sized satellites dock with the solar wing, and the docking process is divided into two stages in this paper. While the DOFs required for the two stages are different, a movable heavy-load reconfigurable redundant posture adjustment platform (RrPAP) with dual motion modes is proposed in this paper. The RrPAP consists of a wheeled mobile platform and a reconfigurable parallel posture adjustment mechanism (PAM). The micro-motion PAM limb types are synthesized, and the comprehensive load-bearing index is proposed to select the mechanism types for heavy-load conditions. A decentralized four-limb six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) parallel micro-motion PAM is designed. In the macro-motion stage, for the PAM to still have a defined motion after being released from ground constraints, a serial coupling sub-chain is designed between adjacent limbs to restrict relative movement between them. A type synthesis method for symmetrically coupled mechanisms based on mechanism decoupling and motion distribution is proposed. Four types of symmetrically coupled mechanisms with multi-loop consisting of serial coupling sub-chains are synthesized by using this method. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated through an example using the constraint synthesis method based on screw theory. This work provides a foundation for subsequent refinement and expansion of type synthesis theories and the selection of new types of mechanisms.

A Light-Load Efficiency Improvement Technique for an Inductive Power Transfer System through a Reconfigurable Circuit

Constant voltage (CV) charging and efficiency improvement are the most basic and main targets to be achieved in inductive power transfer (IPT) systems. However, efficiency may be jeopardized as battery charging progresses, especially under a light-load condition, which accounts for most of the charging time. Traditional maximum-efficiency tracking (MET) control provides an effective solution to the above issues. However, MET control not only brings the difficulties of complicated control and increased cost/volume, but also increases the additional power losses because of the introduction of additional converters or hard-switching in dual-shift phase control. To address the above difficulty, a light-load efficiency improvement (LLEI) technique is presented in this study. Under a heavy-load condition, both the inverter and rectifier operate in conventional full-bridge mode with satisfactory efficiency. Under a light-load condition, both the rectifier and inverter are reconfigured as a voltage-doubler rectifier and half-bridge inverter, respectively, to achieve two targets: one is to keep the charging voltage roughly unchanged, and the other is to force the equivalent load resistance (ELR) approach to the optimal point to improve system power transfer efficiency. A demonstrative experimental prototype with a charging voltage of 60 V is constructed and tested to validate the LLEI method proposed in this study. The experimental results show that the proposal can ensure stable CV charging and significantly improve the system efficiency under a light-load condition over the whole charging process.

Multi-stream domain adversarial prototype network for integrated smart roller TBM main bearing fault diagnosis across various low rotating speeds

The well-being of tunnel boring machines (TBM) heavily relies on the health status of main bearings, significantly impacting both safety and operational efficiency. Investigating the operation monitoring and diagnosis algorithms of TBM main bearings in practical scenarios with limited fault data and real-time variations in low-speed heavy-load operating conditions poses a research challenge. To solve these issues, a novel domain-adversarial prototype network diagnostic algorithm with a multi-stream fusion feature encoder (MDAPN) based on smart roller monitoring data is proposed. In contrast to existing external vibration monitoring schemes for bearings, monitoring data from smart rollers can mitigate complex external interference and greatly shorten the transmission path of fault sources. The algorithm encompasses a multi-stream fusion feature encoder, domain discriminator, and prototype network classifier. Specifically, the multi-stream fusion feature encoder adopts the two-stream convolutional network to deeply extract the axial-radial fused features of rollers, incorporating shallow statistical feature information. Domain-invariant features are generated based on domain adversarial learning strategies, and the prototype network classifier reduces dependence on target domain samples. An integrated smart roller main bearing fault simulation testbed was built, conducting 6 sets of cross-domain experiments. The proposed method reached an average accuracy of 98.41 % under 5-shot, surpassing the baseline method by 6.57 % at least. This validates that the MDAPN based on smart roller state exhibits excellent fault recognition performance for the main bearing under varying operational conditions with scarce available samples.

The optimization design for the journal-thrust couple bearing surface texture based on particle swarm algorithm

Journal-thrust coupled bearings (JTC bearings), unlike conventional journal or thrust bearings, require consideration of both reducing friction coefficient in the journal part while increasing the load-carrying capacity in the thrust part during lubrication design. This study established a thermal-elastohydrodynamic mixed lubrication model for JTC bearings considering flow, pressure, and thermal continuity conditions, validated through experiments. Based on this, the influence of texture parameters on lubrication under real heavy load conditions was preliminarily investigated. The orthogonal test design was then used to determine the texture parameter that had the greatest impact on optimization. Subsequently, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was employed for synchronous optimization design of textures for both journal and thrust parts.

A numerical research on the hydrodynamic performance of marine propellers with bionic coupled blade sections

ABSTRACT The propulsive efficiency and cavitation performance of marine propellers directly affect the operating costs and radiated noise of ships, warranting further research on the hydrodynamic performance. The blade sections' profile of the MAU 5-80 propeller has been modified to incorporate avian wing geometry and spacing ridge structures have been introduced between the leading edge and the thickest point. The numerical results indicate that the spacing ridge structures marginally impact the efficiency enhancement of the bionic blade sections with avian wing geometry, particularly under low advance speeds and heavy load conditions. However, the chordwise coordinate value at the thickest point of the bionic blade sections significantly influences the cavitation containment capability of the ridge structures. Compared with the original propeller, the redesigned propeller with bionic coupled blade sections shows a 2.37% improvement in open water efficiency at J = 0.2 and a 20.12% reduction in cavitation volume at J = 0.48.

Structural Strength Analysis and Optimization of Commercial Aircraft Nose Landing Gear under Towing Taxi-Out Conditions Using Finite Element Simulation and Modal Testing

In the field of civil aviation, the nose landing gear is a critical component that is prone to damage during taxiing. With the advent of new technologies such as towing taxi-out and hub motors, the nose landing gear faces increasingly complex operational environments, thereby imposing higher performance demands. Ensuring the structural safety of the nose landing gear is fundamental for the successful application of these technologies. However, current research on aircraft nose landing gear under these new conditions is somewhat lacking, particularly in terms of reliable analysis models for real-world scenarios. This study focuses on a typical Class C aircraft, specifically the B-727 model, for which a finite element model of the nose landing gear is developed. Modal testing of the aircraft’s nose landing gear is conducted using the impact hammer method, and the results are compared with those from the simulations. The experimental data indicate that the error range for the first seven natural frequencies is between 0.23% and 9.27%, confirming the high accuracy of the developed landing gear model. Furthermore, with towing taxi-out as the primary scenario, a dynamic model of the aircraft towing system is established, and an analysis on the structural strength and topological optimization of the nose landing gear under various conditions, including high speeds and heavy loads, is performed. The results show that the developed model can effectively support the analysis and prediction of the mechanical behavior of the nose landing gear. Under high-speed, heavy-load conditions, the nose landing gear experiences significantly increased loads, with the maximum deformation primarily occurring at the lower section of the shock strut’s outer cylinder. However, no damage occurred. Additionally, under these conditions, an optimized structural design for the landing gear was identified, which, while ensuring structural strength, achieves a 22.32% reduction in the mass of the outer cylinder, also ensuring safety in towing taxi-out conditions.

Insight into the tribological properties of cylinder liner-piston ring under the nano BNNs/Cu composite additive lubrication

To improve the tribological properties of the cylinder liner-piston ring, a two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride/copper composite lubricant additive was prepared and characterized in detail. The tribological properties and lubrication mechanism of nano hexagonal boron nitride composites with different concentrations were studied through the reciprocating friction test on the Rtec friction and wear tester. The results show that copper is successfully reduced and attached to the surface of h-BN nanosheets through the self-polymerization of dopamine, and the spherical structure promotes the interlayer slip of the nanosheets during the reciprocating friction process. The appropriate concentration of nano composite additives has excellent anti-friction and anti-wear properties. At 1 Hz and 100 N, the friction coefficient and wear quality of the nano composite additive with a concentration of 2 wt% were reduced by 29.07% and 76%, respectively. The surface Sq value and Sz value of the cylinder liner sample decreased by 68.06% and 74.47%. At the same time, under the condition of high speed and heavy load, the average wear depth of the cylinder liner sample is reduced by 61.3%. The nano composite material additive forms an excellent friction protective film on the wear surface of the cylinder liner, which can better enter the wear surface of the cylinder liner and produce a filling and repairing effect. The research results provide a method for the use of nano hexagonal boron nitride composite additives to inhibit the wear of cylinder liner-piston ring of Marine diesel engines.

Friction and Wear Performances of Materials for Wind Turbine Sliding Bearing Bushes

This study aimed to enhance the friction and wear characteristics of materials for wind turbine sliding-bearing bushes operating under low-speed and heavy-load conditions. To this end, a high-entropy CoCrFeNiMo alloy coating was applied to the surface of 9Cr18 bearing steel, and Ni-Cr-Mo-Si alloy coating was applied to MTCrMoCu30 wear-resistant cast iron using laser cladding. The effects of varying loads on the friction and wear properties of these coatings were investigated, and the friction and wear properties were compared. Furthermore, the overall priority indices for both groups of bearing bush coatings were assessed. The findings indicated that the friction coefficient, wear quality, and wear rate of CoCrFeNiMo high-entropy alloy coating initially decreased and then increased with the increase in applied load, dominated by abrasive wear. By contrast, the friction coefficient of the Ni-Cr-Mo-Si alloy coating increased, and wear quality and wear rate initially increased and then decreased, indicating the coexistence of adhesive wear and abrasive wear. Therefore, Ni-Cr-Mo-Si alloy coating exhibited a high overall priority index and favorable friction and wear properties.

Static voltage stability considering reactive power limit of salient synchronous generator and active power loss of exciter

With increasing load, it is difficult to maintain power system static voltage stability (SVS). The existing SVS analysis based on the reactive power limit (RPL) of the non-salient synchronous generator (SG) and ignoring the exciter’s loss is inaccurate. This paper proposes an SVS model with exact description to the SG. The novelties are: (1) Seeing that the SVS is deteriorated when the SG reaches the RPL, a solution to the RPL of the salient SG with different reactances along the direct and quadrature axis is newly proposed. (2) The active power loss of the exciter of the SG is newly included in the power flow and the SVS analysis. (3) By deriving the sensitivity of the L index with respect to the load, an index is newly defined to quantify the dependency of the SVS on the RPL. The simulation results show that the RPL of the salient SG considering the stator resistance is narrower. The active power loss of the exciter has more obvious impact on the power flow under heavier loading conditions. When the proposed index is positive, the RPL instead of the L index is more critical to maintain the SVS.

Mesh stiffness calculation of defective gear system under lubrication with automated assessment of surface defects using convolutional neural networks

As typical failure mode of gear system, the tooth surface pitting, spalling can be detected in most long-running gear system, especially under heavy-load and high-speed condition, or under lubricant-starvation condition, the tooth pitting is characterized by irregular contour and random distribution. Most previous study on the defective gear system mainly based on manually detection of defective region, or just rely on geometric simplification of defects, leading to inaccurate results with low-efficient method, therefore, the machine-vision-based defect inspection method is proposed in the study of defective gear system. First, the pitting defects on gear tooth surface is detected and segmented based on involutional neural network U-net, then the tooth surface with segmented defective region is mapped to the elastohydrodynamic lubrication model of spur gear system, finally, the tribological behavior in addition to the mesh stiffness under lubrication condition of defective spur gear system are investigated and discussed. The results reveal that the machine-vision-based defects inspection could improve the accuracy and efficiency of the failure study for gear system.

Cat paw-inspired magnetorheological elastomer embedded mechanical metamaterials with active sensing and switching stiffness for vibration isolator

Real-time vibration monitoring, assessment, and isolation play critical roles in the safety and maintenance of engineering industries and traffic facilities. Recently, magnetorheological elastomers (MRE) with tunable stiffness have been considered promising solutions for vibration isolation. However, for some heavy-load conditions, such as motors or machine tools, MRE vibration isolators are insufficient for realizing vibration sensing and high bearing capacity. Therefore, it is critical to design a novel MRE isolator system that enables real-time vibration monitoring, isolation, and bearing capacity. Herein, we propose a cat's paw-inspired oct-MRE vibration isolator coupled with a soft MRE for energy buffering embedded in octet metamaterials to support the load. For vibration sensing, a sliding triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was constructed using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and a copper foil around the oct-MRE inside a vibration isolator to monitor and evaluate the vibration state in real-time. Experimental tests show that our all-in-one vibration isolator can monitor motor vibration accurately and actively modulate it under resonant conditions, the vibration acceleration can be reduced from 17.0 m/s2 to 12.9 m/s2. This study provides an ideal solution for intelligent health monitoring of motors and other autonomous, smart, and long-term engineering tasks.

Polycarboxylate superplasticizer modified 3D graphene as long-term-efficient water-based lubricating additive under heavy load conditions

At present, due to the excellent properties of graphene, which can significantly enhance the performance of lubricants, researchers are conducting extensive studies on it. However, the poor dispersion of graphene limits its application in lubrication, which becomes an urgent problem for researchers to solve. Moreover, with the concept of green environmental protection becoming more and more popular, the research on water-based lubricants is of great significance. Therefore, we modify three-dimensional graphene (3DG) by polycarboxylate superplasticizer (PCE) to prepare a water-based lubrication nano-additive with long-term dispersion stability, named PCEG. PCEG nanomaterials can stably disperse in water for more than three months, which effectively solves this problem. Tests show that friction coefficient and wear volume of the lubricant with 0.5 wt% PCEG are reduced by 31.1 % and 23.1 %, respectively, compared to the base fluid at 20 N (2.7 GPa) heavy load conditions. The enhanced lubrication performance is attributed to the fact that PCEG, which has excellent dispersion stability, forms a strong adsorption and continuous dense lubrication film on the friction surface. In addition, it fills and polishes the grooves and pits, thus improving the friction-reduction and anti-wear properties. This study not only greatly solves the problem of poor dispersion stability of graphene and develops a nano-lubricant that is consistently effective under heavy load conditions, but also provides an important reference value for the subsequent development of high-performance and stable graphene-based lubricants.

Research on Bearing Mechanism of Spherical Valve Pairs of Axial Piston Pumps

The hydraulic system drives the cutter head mechanism to realize the excavation of large tunnel boring equipment, which puts forward the technical requirements of high pressure and large flow to the pump source. The traditional small displacement axial piston pump uses a planar valve plate. However, under high flow and heavy load conditions, the planar valve plate configuration is prone to uneven wear due to the high-pressure and -velocity (PV) value and pressure shock, which ultimately affects the reliability of the system. A simulation analysis of the load-bearing characteristics of the spherical valve plate mechanism is conducted. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method was used to construct flow field models for different valve plate oil film structures to calculate differences in their load-bearing capacities. Additionally, the reasons for variations in load-bearing characteristics based on the curvature radius of the spherical valve plate were analyzed. The simulation results demonstrate that the spherical valve plate exhibits superior leak and load-bearing performance compared to the traditional flat valve plate. Furthermore, the curvature radius of the spherical valve plate directly affects the pulsation characteristics of the piston pump. Smaller curvature radii increase the contact area of the oil film, resulting in greater fluctuation in oil film load-bearing, whereas larger curvature radii lead to increased oil film leakage. Using simulation calculations on heavy-load, high-displacement axial piston pumps, it is determined that the optimal curvature radius for stable load-bearing is 350 mm.

Analyzing the age of information in prioritized status update systems under an interruption-based hybrid discipline

Motivated by real-life applications, a special research-work interest has been recently directed towards the prioritized status update systems, which prioritize the update streams according to their timeliness constraints. The preferential service treatment between priority classes is commonly based on classical disciplines, preemption and non-preemption. However, both disciplines fail to give an even satisfaction between all classes. In our work, an interruption-based hybrid preemptive/non-preemptive discipline is proposed under a single-buffer system modeled as an M/M/1/2 priority queueing system. Each class being served (resp. buffered) can be preempted unless its recorded number of service preemptions reaches the predetermined in-service (resp. in-waiting) threshold. All thresholds between classes are the controlling parameters of the whole system’s performance. Using the stochastic hybrid system approach, the age of information (AoI) performance metric is analyzed in terms of its statistical average along with the higher-order moments, considering a general number of priority classes. Closed-form results are also obtained for some special cases, giving analytical insights about the AoI stability in heavy loading conditions. The average AoI and its dispersion are numerically investigated for the case of a three-class network. The significance of the proposed model is manifested in achieving a compromise satisfaction between all priority classes by a thorough adjustment of its threshold parameters. Two approaches are proposed to clarify the adjustment of these parameters. It turned out that the proposed hybrid discipline compensates for the limited buffer resource, achieving more promising performance with low design complexity and low cost. Moreover, the proposed scheme can operate under a wider span of the total offered load, through which the whole network satisfaction can be optimized under some legitimate constraints on the age-sensitive classes.

Effects of the Shaft Speed on Stiffness and Damping Coefficients of Hydrodynamic Bearing-Shaft System under Variable Viscosity

The rotating shaft-hydrodynamic bearings systems operated with high speed and/or heavy load conditions expose serious rotor-dynamics instability problems due to characteristics of the supporting bearings. The stability and the dynamics of these systems, directly relate to the lubricant properties that are directly affect by the heat generation. In this study, the dynamic characteristics of a shaft-hydrodynamic journal bearing and its stability were investigated under variable viscosity. The equations of lubricant flow were derived by Dowson’s equation under variable viscosity, and the perturbation equations were obtained for 2 degrees-of-freedom system. The heat transfers between oil and the journal surface was modelled in a 3-dimensional energy equation, and the heat transfer on the journal structure was also modelled with heat conduction equation. An algorithm based on finite difference scheme with successive over relaxation method was developed to solve the theoretical models, simultaneously, and a serial simulation was performed to investigate the variations of the dynamic coefficients of the bearing-shaft system concerning the rotating speed for different radial clearance values. It was determined that the high speed increases the lubricant temperature, and so the static and dynamic performance characteristics decrease, moreover, this effect is more dominant for the smaller radial clearance.