WRTSIL TECHNICAL JOURNAL 02.

2007
in

detail 37
p
Bearings for longer shaft life
AUTHOR: Ti m Bi swel l , Product Devel opment Di rector, Seal s and Beari ngs, Propul si on, Wrtsi l i n the Uni ted Ki ngdom
Fig. 2 Railkos 200 mm test rig. Fig. 1 Sternsafe bearing installation.
Composite marine bearing materials are
non-metallic and have been specially
designed to cope with extremes of
operating conditions: loads, speeds,
temperature uctuations, dirty conditions,
etc, and depending on the application and
grade, these thermosetting resin laminates
can operate dry, partially lubricated,
or fully lubricated in oil or seawater.
The bearings offer signicant advantages
in terms of reduced vessel through-life
operating costs. These include reduced
maintenance, improved reliability, and
less wear to shaft materials. The key
to their success, however, lies in the
high technology composite material,
the excellent R&D work, engineering
design, and skilful manufacturing and
Following the acquisition of the
Railko Marine business in July
2007, Wrtsil now is the leading
developer and manufacturer of high
performance composite bearings.
assembly. They are applied as propeller
shaft bearings, rudder bearings, steering
gear and deck machinery bushes.
Composite bearings
Composite rudder bearings have been
developed over a number of years to
take the pressures and stresses inherent
in rudder assemblies, and to provide
continued performance under the most
arduous conditions. One of the most
advanced materials for rudder bearings
is the CY160LS material, a lament
wound material with high compressive
and impact strength and a proven
ability to resist fatigue shock damage,
thus ensuring long bearing life.
The use of composite oil-lubricated
stern tube bearings was introduced
more than thirty years ago with the
WA80H material. Today, thousands
of ships worldwide have demonstrated
the products exceptional performance
benets, such as the ability to operate
in a seawater/oil emulsion or pure
seawater under emergency conditions.
The material is also kind to shafts and
will not seize, as metallic bearings can.
A low modulus of elasticity and reduced
wear and tear, together with a reduced
weight for ease of handling, are other
advantages. The bearings themselves
can be easily machined and are available
either press tted or resin bonded to
reduce shipyard costs. CY160LS, the rst-
generation of non-asbestos oil-lubricated
bearings, manufactured using an asbestos-
free reinforcement impregnated with a
phenolic resin, offers high compressive
strength, impact strength and wear rate,
to deliver a long bearing life on the 300
vessels to which it has been applied.
Sternsafe development
The latest technology for oil lubricated
stern tube bearings, however, is
Sternsafe
TM
. Developed in conjunction
with a major shipowner and Classication
Society to meet the latest industry
demands, this technology is based on
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Fig 3. Bearing wear after 100 hours in gritted seawater.
50mm Journal test rig Testing in gritted seawater
Bearing wear rate DTI
NF22 (Railko) RG22 (Railko) Elastomeric
CY160LS (Railko) Rubber
1.20
1.10
1.00
0.90
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
mm
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Table 1. Test conditions.
Metric units Imperial units
Sleeve: Stainless steel EN ISO 316 AISI 316
Sleeve diameter 50.8 mm 2 inch
Shaft rotation: 55 rpm 8.8 m/min 28.9 ft/min
Bearing load 2500 N 550 lbf
Bearing pressure 0.48 N/mm 69 psi
4.8 kg/cm
2
PV rating 42 kg/cm
2
. m/min 2000 psi. ft/min
Lubricant ow rate 7.5 litres/min 1.65 lmp. gallons/min
120 US gallons/hour
Lubricant tank capacity 88 litres agitated

Fig. 4 Elastomeric bearing wiped.
a composite material with a newly
developed, improved bearing surface,
which incorporates all the benets of
the existing products but with increased
strength and durability. Sternsafe can
also operate with some environmentally
friendly bio-degradable oils.
The rst vessel tted with Sternsafe
was the container ship Maersk Antwerp.
This retrot was completed in April
2002 and the vessel has now completed
over ve years of uninterrupted
service. Sternsafe has since been tted
to almost 100 ships covering a wide
range of different shiptypes, with every
possible shaft size operating under a
variety of operating conditions.
In addition to this, Wrtsil has recently
supplied what is thought to be the worlds
largest composite stern tube bearing.
The bearing, which is designed to suit
a shaft of over 1000 mm in diameter,
is now operating successfully on ve
vessels in a series of what is reported to
be the worlds largest container ships.
Water-lubricated systems
Alongside its oil-lubricated sterntube seals
and bearings, Railko water-lubricated
systems have also formed part of the
companys product portfolio for over
forty years, supplying more than 30 of
the worlds navies. Extensive independent
end-user testing of the shaft bearing
materials has been undertaken by
several navies, all of whom consequently
adopted the systems for use in surface
and submarine eets. Wrtsils
acquisition of Railko also includes the
companys sophisticated laboratory that
has been at the forefront of bearing
technology for nearly half a century.
Advanced 50 mm and 200 mm
propeller shaft bearing test rigs have
been used to conrm the performance
of the non-asbestos NF21/22 material
intrinsic to the water lubricated stern tube
bearing system. The material allows the
system to offer a signicant reduction
in the shaft speed at which the point of
hydrodynamic operation is achieved.
As a result, bearing friction and wear
are reduced dramatically. Service wear
measurements predict that a bearing life
approaching 90 years could be possible.
In order to compare materials in
current use, an arduous test programme
was devised to analyse the performance
of various bearing materials, in highly
abrasive conditions, against stainless
steel counter face materials.
Substitute seawater was used with
silica particles added. The grit used was
equivalent in particle size and shape to
that found in the UK Portland area at
a concentration accepted by the UK
Ministry of Defence to be representative
of aggressive British coastal water.
Bearing up to tests
To accelerate the comparative test, the
concentration was increased by a factor of
10. The grit was kept in suspension in the
WRTSIL TECHNICAL JOURNAL 02. 2007
in

detail 39
Fig. 5 Rubber bearing shaft after 800 hours. Fig. 6 NF shaft after 2000 hours testing.
seawater by means of a stirrer agitating
the solution in the supply tank.
A pump was used to deliver the
gritted seawater to the bearing and re-
circulate it back to the tank. The ow
rate for each of the test bearings was
set at 7.5 l/m. Interestingly, the pump
did not survive the rst set of tests. Test
conditions can be seen in Table 1. The
initial testing comprised running each
material under the stated conditions for
a period of 100 hours, measuring the
bearing wear rate at 20 hour intervals.
As can be seen from the results in
Figure 3, even though all the materials
were tested under the same conditions,
there was a spread of wear results. Most
materials performed well over this
time period with the exception of the
elastomeric material, where signicant
bearing wear and smearing occurred, and
scoring on the shaft liner was noted. For
consistency, all bearings were tested with
the multi-axial groove conguration;
this tested the performance of the
bearing material and not the design.
The second phase took the two best
performing materials, Railko NF and
rubber, testing them over a period of
2000 hours. Initially the rubber material
performed well in comparison to
Railko NF, but over time the wear rate
increased rapidly. The rate of wear was
such that the test on the rubber material
was stopped at around 850 hours.
The tests showed that that there was
signicant scoring on the shaft on the
rubber bearing when compared to the
original shaft condition. This was caused
by the silica particles becoming embedded
in the rubber material. These particles
then scored the shaft resulting in the
typical failure mechanism of this type
of material. The gramophone effect
created on the shaft cannot maintain a
hydrodynamic water lm, resulting in
shaft to bearing contact. This greatly
accelerates the bearing wear, leading
to extensive run-away wear down.
Railko NF material
By contrast, the Railko NF material, with
its standard bearing design, exhibited
a more linear (steady state) wear result.
The test in this case was continued
to 2000 hours. The bearing was still
capable of further operation. It is worth
noting that the Railko NF bearing took
almost twice as long to reach the same
wear down level as the rubber bearing.
As can be seen from Figure 6, the
shaft sleeve was not heavily worn. As
Railko NF is relatively harder than
rubber, the material does not allow
abrasive particles to embed in its surface,
therefore maintaining a hydrodynamic
water lm and greatly increasing
both bearing and shaft sleeve life.
The NF21/22 material working in
conjunction with gunmetal journal has
over 25 years of proven service as a water-
lubricated propeller shaft bearing in both
naval and commercial vessel applications.
In addition, based upon the additional
recent test work completed, Wrtsil
can condently offer its standard water-
lubricated bearing material with its
standard design for both deep water
and dirty river water conditions.
The compatibility of NF and stainless
steel liners provides a durable system
with long bearing life and extended
shaft life. Railko bearings can readily
replace rubber or elastomeric bearing
materials and can be supplied as nish
machined bearings, for press-tting into
the stern tube or bracket, or in tube
form for nal machining in the yard.
The addition of the Railko bearing
materials to the existing Wrtsil seals
and bearings portfolio enables Wrtsil to
offer fully cost-effective seal and bearing
package solutions for both water and oil
lubricated systems, placing the company in
an excellent position to satisfy shipowner
demands for a totally environmentally
friendly propeller shaft system.