Set-up of a novel test plant for high power turbomachinery tilting pad journal bearings

Tilting pad journal bearings are commonly used in turbomachinery for their stability at high rotational speeds. The behaviour of the bearings influences the dynamics of the rotor, so the determination of its stiffness and damping coefficients is of fundamental importance. This is often done experimentally by applying dynamic loads to the bearing and measuring the rotor/stator relative displacement. Suitable identification methods are used for the determination of the coefficients mainly in the frequency domain. In this work the set-up of a novel test rig for the static and dynamic characterization of high performance tilting pad journal bearings is described.