Recent Development on Heat Transfer Augmentation Design for Reducing Surface Temperature in a Lubrication System

Recently developed heat transfer augmentation techniques, such as surface texturing (US20120274029) and built-in heat pipe (US20140327211), show potential in significantly lowering the rubbing face temperature of the parallel sliding tribocomponents, such as mechanical seals and bearings. In addition, recent experimental results have revealed that lowering the face temperature tends to lower the rubbing face friction coefficient and wear rate. As a result, implementation of heat transfer augmentation techniques, especially the built-in heat pipe, can dramatically improve lubrication between the parallel sliding components. While comparing a lubrication system with a conventional disk (CoD), the utilization of a built-in heat pipe disk (HPD) results in lower face temperature, more uniform face temperature distribution, and less thermal deformation. Although, the prototype HPD tested in this study has a thinner wall thickness compared to that of the CoD, numerical simulations of loading on the rubbing face reveal that the mechanical deformation has little impact on the surface lubrication.