GB644930A - Improvements in or relating to bearing arrangements of turbines and like machines - Google Patents

Abstract

644,930. Bearings, cooling. POWER JETS (RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT), Ltd. Dec. 13, 1947, No. 32922. [Class 12 (i)] In a multistage gas turbine or like fluid flow machine operating at high temperatures and having a rotor mounted on a journal element, an enclosing bearing for the journal element is radially and axially heat insulated by a flow of coolant through chambers or passages inside and outside the journal element and outside the bearing. A rotor stub shaft 2 comprising the journal element is supported on a roller bearing 3 mounted in a stationary bearing sleeve 4 carried by a main bearing housing 5. An electric motor driven pump forces coolant oil, controlled by a valve, through a pipe 27 to a passage 26, whence it flows through either a port 28, a bearing chamber 9, the bearing 3, thereby also effecting lubrication, to a cooling chamber 20, or alternatively through a helical cooling passage 17 defined by ribs in the bearing sleeve 4, and a port 29 to the chamber 20, thence it returns to a sump via an outlet 31. An independent but similar source of coolant issues from a pipe 32 and passage 33 into a cooling chamber 15 where it flows through inclined ports 34 in the shaft 2 along a further helical cooling passage 21 defined by ribs therein and a sleeve 22, to return via ports 35, 36 and a further cooling chamber 16 to an outlet 37. The coolant flow is independent of operation of the turbine and may continue after it has stopped.