Greaseless Bushings for Hydropower Applications: Program, Testing, and Results

摘要

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has been assessing the potential environmental and economic benefits of replacing greased or oiled bushings with greaseless (self-lubricated) bushings at its hydropower and navigation facilities. Products of this type currently on the market, however, were not specifically developed for the high-load, low-speed oscillating operating conditions typical for power-generation machinery. In-place testing of these materials on real-world hydroelectric equipment would pose too much risk of failure for critical facilities, and require many years to obtain meaningful performance comparisons. No standard specifications or laboratory tests for such applications have yet been developed and widely accepted. The U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) cooperated in a joint effort between the USACE Hydroelectric Design Center (HDC; Portland, Oregon) and Powertech Laboratories Inc. (Surrey, BC, Canada) to use Power-tech's equipment and the combined hydroelectric expertise of HDC and Powertech Laboratories to develop standardized test procedures and a rating system for greaseless bushing materials intended for oscillating operation in high-load, low-speed conditions. An objective of this work was to evaluate a series of greaseless bushing materials using the new testing regimen. This report documents the development of the testing regimen, discusses the bearing rating procedure, and summarizes the results of the materials testing program.