Project Details
Projekt
Auto-informative plain bearings – self-sufficient, temperature-based film thickness determination for condition monitoring in plain bearings
Subject Area
Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 466775494
Sensor-integrated machine elements (SiME) offer the potential to accelerate comprehensive digitalization in mechanical engineering through the minimally invasive integration of sensor technology into the target system. In the first funding period, a physical prototype for the machine element plain bearing was developed and experimentally tested, which should fulfill the characteristics of a SiME in the future. The sub-functions of condition monitoring, energy harvesting (EH) and data transmission were successfully tested individually in experiments. However, the sub-functions have not been coupled in test bench operation yet. The temperature field-based, in-situ monitoring approach, which was developed in the first funding period, calculates the lubrication gap height for stationary conditions using the DIN standardized Gümbel curve for the detection of wear-critical mixed friction conditions by means of a microcontroller integrated into the plain bearing. In preliminary investigations, it was also shown that failure-critical states for transient operating conditions (e.g. start-stop processes) can also be detected using the selected monitoring approach. A thermoelectric EH system was implemented in the plain bearing volume and the amount of energy that can be generated was determined. The thermoelectric EH approach is suitable for ensuring the necessary energy supply for the condition monitoring system. However, the voltage conversion chain required to operate the condition monitoring system proved to be challenging, so the energy supply was initially wired. Wireless data interfaces were integrated into the developed prototypes and successfully tested under laboratory conditions. Plain bearings are usually located inside a metal housing during operation, which means that stable wireless data transmission from the plain bearing still has to be tested. To ensure stable data transmission in test bench operation, data transmission was therefore initially transmitted by wire. The objective of the proposed follow-up project is the development of a fully autonomous sensor-integrating plain bearing (SiPB) and the experimental verification of functional reliability based on the findings and preliminary work of the first project phase. In the proposed project, the condition monitoring approach will also be extended to transient states by selecting temperature measurement signal-based limit values in order to be able to monitor all failure-critical operating states of the plain bearing. To enable the transferability of the SiPB concept to other target applications, a model-based framework for SiPB development is also to be created. For this purpose, a methodical procedure for the model-based integration of SiGL in different plain bearing applications will be derived.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
