Abstract: The variations of the supporting condition, which change the
stiffness of tilting pad thrust bearing, may alter the dynamic behavior of the
rotor system. The effects of supporting condition of thrust pad on the lateral
vibration of a hydroelectric generating set are investigated in this paper. The
action of a thrust bearing is described as moments acting on the thrust collar,
and the tilting stiffness coefficients of thrust bearing are calculated. A
model based on typical beam finite element method is established to calculate
the dynamic response, and the effects of supporting conditions such as elastic
oil tank support, different heights of the thrust pads with rigid support are
discussed. The results reveal that the influence of thrust bearing is small
when the elastic oil tanks work normally. When the supporting conditions turn
to be rigid due to the oil leakage, the differences of thrust pad heights have
evident influence on the load distribution of the thrust pads; while the
effects on the tilting stiffness of the thrust bearing and the amplitude of the
lateral shaft vibration is small when the maximum load on thrust pads is
smaller than the allowable value.
