A tribological experimental investigation of a heat-pipe cooled isothermal journal bearing

An isothermal journal bearing has been developed by incorporating heat-pipe-cooling technology. The research work reported in this paper is an experimental investigation that was conducted to study the thermal-tribological performance of the isothermal journal bearing subject to frictional heating. A stainless-steel journal bearing that incorporates a few methanol heat pipes was fabricated for the current study and the heat-pipe grooves were machined on the inner ring. A conventional plain journal bearing having the same inner and outer diameters, as well as the same material as the isothermal journal bearing was also tested for comparison. Because stainless steel is notorious for adhesion this study has an opportunity to investigate the relationship between the adhesion and temperature variation and the possibility of controlling this type of heat-related tribological problem.