Diagnostics and failure of plain bearings

Abstract

Plain bearings have wide application in heavy mechanical engineering like mills, turbines, crushers, rolling mills and forging machines, presses and similar. Early detection of plain bearing failures is necessary in terms of systems maintenance and reliability as well as from the aspect of economy and protection of these production facilities. Failure and damage of plain bearings are most commonly manifested as wear, tear and plastic deformation of the material. Fracture and plastic deformation are damages related to strength, while wear, with all their manifestations, is associated with tribological processes. The research in this paper has shown that, in a reliable way, these problems can be detected at the very stage of their formation by vibration analysis and thermal analysis of bearing condition. This paper presents a part of the research done in the Laboratory for Applied Mechanics and Constructions at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in East Sarajevo. In this paper, the selection of plain bearing failures was performed, diagnostic models whose reliability was investigated in above mentioned Laboratory as well as on real industrial machines during their expulsion were developed.