T. Baudendistel, PC Krause and Associates, Inc; S. Pekarek, Purdue University; E. A. Walters, PC Krause and Associates, Inc.
In the aviation industry, the ever increasing need for more power in addition to the need to reduce weight and size has driven the requirements for higher and higher rotating speeds in aircraft machinery. This in turn has put an increasing burden on the bearings used in these machines. In this presentation, a recently developed fixture was developed to test high-speed bearings in the range of 25,000 rpm. This low-cost test fixture was developed to test bearings to failure by applying an artificial axial load. This low-cost/high-speed bearing tester is instrumented with a low cost torque ripple sensors and temperature probes to aid in the development of a PHM algorithm as well as a suite of temperature probes to monitor bearing temperatures. As the bearings fail the torque ripple and temperature signatures created are recorded for future analysis. Due to the low-cost nature of the fixture, it will also include an accelerometer dedicated to determining the speed of the rotating drive motor.
Contact information: baudendistel@pcka.com