Low Speed Conditions Research Articles

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.

Rapid Failure of Lubricated Contacts with Grease Under ZEV Condition

Abstract In response to the rapid failure of grease lubrication under low surface speed with zero entraining velocity (ZEV), a common occurrence in ball screws or retainerless rolling element bearings, detailed observations were conducted through optical interferometric experiments. It was observed that despite a constant surface speed and load, the motion remained transient due to the transition between outlet cavitation and inlet starvation. The reciprocating motion of the cavitation zone rapidly depleted the contact area, leading to severe surface peeling. However, as the surface speed increased, this phenomenon was alleviated and eventually disappeared. To enhance lubrication performance, bilateral grooves were created using laser technology, proving to be advantageous for grease lubrication life under low surface speed conditions. Despite the occurrence of rapid surface failure, grease lubrication demonstrated clear benefits over oil lubrication when operating at low surface speeds.

Noise Analysis and Structural Optimization of Automobile Scroll Compressor Air Valve

The air conditioning compressor is a critical component in automobile heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. However, compressor noise has long been a problem for automobile manufacturers. In recent years, the development and application of automobile air conditioning scroll compressors has increased significantly due to their low mechanical vibration and noise. However, their limitations in terms of airflow pulse and noise cannot be ignored, especially in low speed and high load conditions where the noise generated has a negative impact on driving and passenger experience. Noise and airflow pulses are important considerations that cannot be ignored. This study innovatively modifies the end cap structure of the scroll compressor, using the principles of expansion muffler and insertion tube structure, with the aim of improving the acoustic quality of the scroll compressor. The results show that the novel valve construction can significantly reduce the sound pressure level of the scroll compressor noise to a maximum of 75.20 dBA. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis and practical technical applications for future research and development in the automobile industry.

Research on the influence of flexible wheelset rotation effect on wheel rail contact force

PurposeUnder the high-speed operating conditions, the effects of wheelset elastic deformation on the wheel rail dynamic forces will become more notable compared to the low-speed condition. In order to meet different analysis requirements and selecting appropriate models to analyzing the wheel rail interaction, it is crucial to understand the influence of wheelset flexibility on the wheel-rail dynamics under different speeds and track excitations condition.Design/methodology/approachThe wheel rail contact points solving method and vehicle dynamics equations considering wheelset flexibility in the trajectory body coordinate system were investigated in this paper. As for the wheel-rail contact forces, which is a particular force element in vehicle multibody system, a method for calculating the Jacobian matrix of the wheel-rail contact force is proposed to better couple the wheel-rail contact force calculation with the vehicle dynamics response calculation. Based on the flexible wheelset modeling approach in this paper, two vehicle dynamic models considering the wheelset as both elastic and rigid bodies are established, two kinds of track excitations, namely normal measured track irregularities and short-wave irregularities are used, wheel-rail geometric contact characteristic and wheel-rail contact forces in both time and frequency domains are compared with the two models in order to study the influence of flexible wheelset rotation effect on wheel rail contact force.FindingsUnder normal track irregularity excitations, the amplitudes of vertical, longitudinal and lateral forces computed by the flexible wheelset model are smaller than those of the rigid wheelset model, and the virtual penetration and equivalent contact patch are also slightly smaller. For the flexible wheelset model, the wheel rail longitudinal and lateral creepages will also decrease. The higher the vehicle speed, the larger the differences in wheel-rail forces computed by the flexible and rigid wheelset model. Under track short-wave irregularity excitations, the vertical force amplitude computed by the flexible wheelset is also smaller than that of the rigid wheelset. However, unlike the excitation case of measured track irregularity, under short-wave excitations, for the speed within the range of 200 to 350 km/h, the difference in the amplitude of the vertical force between the flexible and rigid wheelset models gradually decreases as the speed increase. This is partly due to the contribution of wheelset’s elastic vibration under short-wave excitations. For low-frequency wheel-rail force analysis problems at speeds of 350 km/h and above, as well as high-frequency wheel-rail interaction analysis problems under various speed conditions, the flexible wheelset model will give results agrees better with the reality.Originality/valueThis study provides reference for the modeling method of the flexible wheelset and the coupling method of wheel-rail contact force to the vehicle multibody dynamics system. Furthermore, by comparative research, the influence of wheelset flexibility and rotation on wheel-rail dynamic behavior are obtained, which is useful to the application scope of rigid and flexible wheelset models.

A failure analysis of foil journal bearing under low-speed operating conditions

In this failure analysis, the bump-type foil journal bearing (BFJB) is developed with various foil materials such as spring steel EN42J, phosphor bronze, Inconel X750, and SS 316. Subsequent failure analysis of the BFJB is conducted under low-speed operating conditions to evaluate their rubbing performance using the RSM technique. The study examined rotor speed and load as variable parameters, with wear rate (WR) and surface roughness (SR) of the BFJB as output responses. Additionally, a thermal imager is used to measure the rubbing temperature of the BFJB. The results indicated that Inconel X750 demonstrated superior tribological characteristics for the BFJB. With an increase in load, the wear rate of the BFJB increased while the surface roughness decreased. Among all foil materials, Inconel X750 had the most significant impact on surface roughness. The optimal values for rotor speed (S) and load (P) to enhance BFJB performance are 500 rpm and 10 N, respectively. Under these optimal conditions, the BFJB with Inconel X750 as the foil material exhibited a wear rate of 0.0150 mg/s and a surface roughness of 2.085 μm. Moreover, the BFJB made with phosphor bronze displayed the minimum rubbing temperature.

Global flattening realization and kinematic analysis of UV-assisted low-speed 3D dynamic friction-polished diamonds

Diamond has attracted extensive attention from many scholars because of its unique properties. However, there are still bottlenecks in how to achieve high efficiency polishing and global flattening of diamond which restrict its application. The aim of this study is to obtain a globally homogeneous flattened diamond surface in macro dimension by introducing a compound motion of the polished workpiece. It is shown that ultra-smooth diamond surface machining with global flattening can be realized by UV-assisted low-speed dynamic friction polishing technique, and the typical roughness is 0.175 nm as measured by 3D optical surface profiler. These experimental results demonstrate that the catalytic phase transition process of UV light is the underlying mechanism to realize the diamond surface polishing under low rotational speed conditions. Additionally, the composite motion of the diamond sample with the metal disk brings large enhancement to the effect of polishing global flattening on the sample surface. The theoretical and experimental studies in this paper provide novel ideas for achieving efficient and polished global flattening of diamond.

Cooperative optimization of energy recovery and braking feel based on vehicle speed prediction under downshifting conditions

Regenerative braking can effectively recover vehicle kinetic energy, but its energy conversion efficiency is low under low-speed conditions, and there is also the problem of premature exit from energy recovery due to insufficient reverse electromotive force. The cooperation of gearbox gears can increase the speed range for the motor to recover energy, but unreasonable shifting will cause fluctuations in braking force and affect the consistency of the braking feel. Therefore, this paper aims to collaboratively optimize energy recovery and braking force fluctuations during gear shifting. Firstly, based on the model of braking system and transmission, the influence of shift strategy on braking impact and energy recovery is studied. In view of the challenge of determining a shift strategy with uncertain target braking speeds, a speed prediction model reconstructed by the support vector regression (SVR) model and the hybrid nonlinear autoregressive neural network (NAR) is proposed. On the basis of NAR-SVR speed prediction, the coupling effect of braking impact force and energy recovery efficiency is considered, and the collaborative optimization of regenerative braking torque and shift time is solved through a multi-objective cuckoo search algorithm. The hardware-in-the-loop test results verified that under high-speed conditions, the braking energy recovery rate of the proposed strategy was increased by 47.06 %, and the peak braking impact was reduced by 61.4 %. This research can provide a reference for the brake downshift optimization strategy and regenerative braking research of vehicles with non-decoupled electro-hydraulic composite braking systems.

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.

MCSA-based fault diagnosis for rotary parts in servo motion system: Approach and experimental study

Motor current signature analysis (MCSA), as a non-invasive diagnostic method, is robust to environmental noise and of less sensor cost than vibration-based monitoring. Although large amount of progress has been achieved, little attention is paid to the MCSA-based diagnosis task in the Servo motion systems (SMS). An approach using Park vector demodulation, comb filtering and the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is proposed for cyclic fault event detection in this paper. Experiment studies reveal that the MCSA approach could extract the fault signature under extremely low-speed or noisy working condition, which has potential in the scenarios where the accelerometers placement is limited or affected by interferences.

Study of the effect of airflow rate and agitation speed on entrainment of ash particles in bottom ash flotation

To enhance the recovery and grade of the final product, reducing the entrainment of the hydrophilic particles during flotation is critical. We conducted the improvement of entrainment to reduce the amount of ash in the concentrate with the purpose of recovering high-quality unburned carbon from the bottom ash and reusing it as fuel in power plant. In this study, we investigated the effects of airflow rate and agitation speed on the entrainment of hydrophilic particles. In the self-aerating flotation machine, it was difficult to independently control the agitation speed and airflow rate, resulting in the degree of entrainment of 0.74. By independently controlling the airflow in which hydrophobic particles can float under conditions of the degree of entrainment with 0.7 (low agitation speed: 900 rpm), the combustible recovery and unburned carbon content of concentrate were 93.71% and 93.60%, respectively. The degree of entrainment was found to be 0.57, and entrainment could be minimized through independent control of airflow rate and agitation speed. To minimize entrainment, it is effective to inject air that can suspend hydrophobic particles in a low agitation speed condition.

Revolution and peak discrepancy-based domain alignment method for bearing fault diagnosis under very low-speed conditions

Transfer learning (TL) for bearing fault diagnosis has achieved remarkable success under different operating conditions, even with a limited amount of data. However, it is hard to implement TL from high-speed to very-low-speed (VLS) bearings due to the large domain discrepancies. Two main factors can bring about domain discrepancies between high-speed to VLS bearings, specifically, 1) revolution discrepancy and 2) peak discrepancy that arise from different operating speeds and different bearing specifications, respectively. These factors disturb TL’s feature extraction process as it seeks speed-invariant and fault-related characteristics. Thus, this paper newly defines two metrics – revolution discrepancy DR and peak discrepancy DP – to quantify the domain discrepancies between different bearing systems, including consideration of rotational speed and specification differences. Furthermore, domain alignment techniques are proposed to reduce these domain discrepancies, thereby enabling adequate TL for bearing fault diagnosis. In this research, the revolution matching module (RMM) is developed to be helpful for extracting speed-invariant features by matching the revolution information under different rotational speeds. Further, the peak matching module (PMM) is developed to extract fault-related features by matching the defect peak information from different specifications. The proposed method is validated using experimental bearing datasets under various speeds. The results demonstrate that the proposed metrics can quantify the discrepancies between different bearing systems, and that the use of RMM and PMM can successfully improve TL performances for VLS bearings even under insufficient data conditions.

Friction behavior of 3D printed flexible cavity structure at low-speed condition

This study aims to study the changes in surface friction of flexible cavities produced by 3D printing under different internal pressures. An inflatable flexible air cavity fabricated using 3D printing technology and made of Tough-PLA and TPU95A materials was used as the experimental object. This study conducts low-speed friction tests on flexible surfaces under two conditions: different load pressure and different internal pressure. The experimental results show that under the same load conditions, the average sliding friction force between the contact surfaces with a contact area of only 16 cm2 increases by approximately 1 N as the air pressure increases, while the maximum static friction force increases by approximately 2–6 N. The inflatable cavity changes the friction of the contact surfaces under the influence of different internal air pressures. Through roughness measurements and microphotographs of the contact surfaces under different internal air pressures, it was found that the main reason is that the internal air pressure changes the surface roughness of the contact surface, thereby changing the friction between the contact surfaces. This study demonstrates a novel way to control the friction between flexible material contact surfaces. It has broad prospects and great significance for the future application of 3D printing flexible materials in the contact friction control of robot grippers and flexible joints and the lightweight of brakes.

Computational Validation and Assessment of Large Amplitude Transverse Gust Physics

Rotary-wing vehicles, in particular smaller, lighter unmanned and urban air vehicles in urban and shipboard settings, will operate in low-speed flight conditions that are dominated by strong transient aerodynamics. Understanding the physics of these transient aerodynamics, specifically large amplitude transverse gusts and the resulting vehicle response, is crucial to the successful development and certification of safe air vehicles that operate in these environments. A high-fidelity computational study, including validation with experiments, explores sharp-edged or step transverse gusts where the gust velocity induces nonlinear behavior caused by flow separation. The behavior of the maximum lift and leading edge vortex behavior with the gust ratio is presented. Gust responses are observed to depart from Küssner’s theory when the leading edge vortex first forms as a distinct feature and breaks away from the wing, resulting in flow nonlinearities. Traditional linear indicial admittance techniques are shown to no longer be valid to predict gust responses when the gust velocity approaches the vehicle flight speed.

Frictional vibration analysis of train braking system considering wheel-rail attachment and multi-body friction

Train vibration and noise have always been problems that affect the service life of relevant components and passenger comfort. This paper focuses on the vibration of the train braking system and establishes a torsional vibration model of the train braking system considering wheel-rail attachment and multi-body friction, which includes three rotational degrees of freedom of the brake disc, brake block, and wheelset. The periodic vibration and chaotic bifurcation of the braking system under low-speed working conditions are studied by numerical calculation. An optimization strategy is proposed for the chaotic bifurcation behavior, which eliminates the chaotic interval at low speeds through the reasonable matching of particle parameters, so as to ameliorate the brake groan problem of the train.

A new fault component selection strategy based on statistical detection for slewing bearing weak signal de-noising

Slewing bearing is a critical transmission component in large-size construction machinery due to its low-speed and heavy-load conditions. Fault prognostics and health management of slewing bearing are crucial for ensuring their high availability and profitable operation. However, the presence of background noise in construction machinery signals restricts the applicability of existing signal processing approaches in prognostics and health management. To address this challenge, a novel signal de-noising method is proposed based on adaptive decomposition, along with a new strategy for recognizing fault components using statistic detection through kernel principal component analysis (KPCA). First, robust local mean decomposition is utilized to adaptively decompose the fault and normal vibration signal over the entire service life. Then, product functions (PFs) decomposed by fault and normal vibration signal are used for KPCA anomaly detection. Finally, the fault PFs are reconstructed to obtain the de-noised signal. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through the use of both simulated and experimental vibration signals obtained from a slewing-bearing life-cycle test. The results illustrate that the proposed method has superior de-noising capability and decomposition efficiency, making it an effective signal preprocessing technique for prognostics and health management.

Modeling and analysis of 3D mixed lubrication in marine cam–tappet pair

During the operation of the marine cam–tappet pair, affected by periodic dynamic load, transient velocity, and micromorphology, it usually operates in a mixed lubrication state. Under extreme operational conditions, contact is likely to occur at the asperity of the interface, leading to problems such as stress concentration and dry contact. Considering the transient dynamics and three-dimensional roughness of cam–tappet pair, a mixed-elastohydrodynamic lubrication model is developed in this article, while the effects of surface waviness on the lubrication state are also investigated. The results show that the film thickness can be increased by 0.098 μm, and the coefficient of friction can be reduced by 10.6% when the wavelength ratio ranges from 1/6 to 6. However, when the amplitude exceeds 0.6 μm, the coefficient of friction may reach 0.10. Under conditions of low speed and high load, the film thickness decreases and contact load ratio increases. And about 30% reduction in film thickness is achieved on cam–tappet pair, potentially leading to increased wear or scuffing failure.

Experimental Investigation on the Aerodynamic Instability Process of a High-Speed Axial-Centrifugal Compressor

Abstract Aerodynamic instability plays an important role in compressor design and may cause performance degradation and fatigue damage. In this paper, an experimental study on the evolution of aerodynamic instability is carried out on a compressor that combines the performance benefits of an axial stage and centrifugal stage. The spatiotemporal characteristics of unsteady wall pressure were obtained using fast-responding pressure transducers over a range of operating conditions. The results show that the axial stage works on the positive slope of the performance characteristic curve from choke to stall at low-speed operating conditions, and mainly features rotating instability. Rotating stall is also observed in the impeller (IMP) and diffuser passages. At medium-speed operating conditions, the centrifugal stage suffers a high-frequency mild surge, alternating with rotating stall. With the increase in back pressure, the mild surge diminishes, and rotating stall persists. This behavior is similar to a two-regime-surge, which has been reported for centrifugal compressors. At high-speed operating conditions, the compressor directly reaches surge without other instabilities. Further analysis of the spatial pattern of the rotating stall revealed the existence of a high-pressure region near the volute tongue, resulting in obvious pressure distortion along the circumferential direction at the volute inlet. This induced the amplitude difference of stall cells in corresponding diffuser passages. The disturbance caused by stall cells propagates upstream through the blade passage, and the largest pressure disturbance induced by the stall cell propagation appears in a circumferential position 45 deg downstream of the volute tongue at the impeller inlet and the axial stage inlet.

Study on Friction and Wear Characteristics of Axial Piston Pump Valve Plate Pairs Modified with Different Surface Energies

To explore the friction and wear performance of the valve pair with different wetting combinations under various working conditions in hydraulic oil lubrication, a low surface energy modification method was adopted in this paper to improve the surface wettability of the upper sample composed of SAF2507 and the lower sample composed of CFRPEEK, and to prepare valve plate pairs with different wetting combinations. The MMU-5G friction and wear testing machine was used to investigate its friction and wear characteristics under hydraulic oil lubrication. The results show that the surface free energy of SAF2507 and CFRPEEK decreased significantly after the treatment with a low surface energy solution, and the surface free energy of the upper and lower samples decreased by 41.9% and 42.2%, respectively. The oil contact angle of samples remained lipophilic, but the oil contact angle increased significantly. Under the working condition of low speed (800 r/min), the surface wettability of the valve plate pair has a great influence on its friction and wear characteristics. When operating at high speed (1200 r/min), the surface wettability of the valve plate pair has little influence on its friction and wear characteristics.

Delayed detached eddy simulation for wake flow analysis of axisymmetric boattail models under low-speed conditions

This study investigates the steady and unsteady behaviors of near-wake flow for axisymmetric models acquired with conical boattails with different slant angles under low-speed conditions. Delayed detached eddy simulation (DDES) was applied for the numerical processes. The Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) was then used to reconstruct the dominant modes of the pressure at the base and velocity fields on the symmetry plane. Both near-wake and far-wake flows were considered in this study to obtain a full pattern of the wake. It was shown that the DDES allows for obtaining a highly accurate wake flow field. The large-scale structure of the base flow with two dominant modes of vortex shedding at StD = 0.19–0.24 and bubble pumping at StD = 0.06–0.08 occurs for the axisymmetric blunt-based model. At boattail angles up to 16°, those frequencies are clearly distinguished from the time series of POD modes of the velocity fluctuations. However, for higher angles, the motions of the “bubble pumping” and vortex shedding combine to generate frequencies in the range of StD = 0.07–0.15. The fully separated flow disturbs a ratio of one-third for the bubble pumping and vortex shedding frequencies, which was shown widely in previous studies. The reduction of frequency band and large-scale features for boattail angles of 16° explains the low drag generated for that configuration.

Structural Analysis of a Large-scale Model for the Wind Tunnel Test of a Multiadaptive Flap

Innovative studies on morphing wing structures with the highest potential to improve aerodynamic performance on large aircraft are running under the CleanSky2 platform to validate the morphing architectures on true-scale demonstrator through ground and wind tunnel tests. Research activities have been conducted to develop a revolutionary multi-modal camber morphing flap to enhance the aerodynamic behaviour of a new generation of regional aircraft within this challenging framework. The design and validation of the intelligent architecture capable of different morphing modes required for low-speed (take-off/landing) and high-speed (cruise)conditions. To enhance the significance and applicability of the wind tunnel test campaign, a significant scale factor of 1:3 was selected for the test article. In this study, general layout of the mechanical model and FE analysis performed both inner and outer flap will be presented. A comprehensive structural analysis of the flap test article was conducted to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the conceived mechanical solutions. Linear static analyses were performed using the finite element (FE) method within the Ansys Workbench® environment. These analyses aimed to assess the adequacy of the mechanical solutions and validate the test article’s structural integrity.