oil flexible flinger disk (vs ring) experience? 3

[electricpete]

http://home.houston.rr.com/electricpete/BlochArticleTAMU.pdf

The above linked article by Heinz Bloch identifies:

Oil ring function is not critical for machines < 3,600 rpm since oil level can be adjusted partway up the lowest rolling element.

Oil ring function is critical for machines at 3,600 rpm, since the bearing cannot be flooded and will therefore rely on proper ring operation for lubrication of the bearing.

Oil rings have a complex operation heavily dependent upon viscosity, immersion depth, levelness etc and can become unstable in the range of D*N number 6000 - 8000 and above where here he defines DN using D= bore diameter in inches and N = rpm. For 3,600rpm machine, you might expect problems with rings on as small a bearing as 6000/3600 ~ 1.7" ~ 42 mm or size 6308. Even more likely problems with bigger bearings.

We have had a number of 3600 rpm pumps with oil ring lubrication that generate discolored oil. In some cases oil analysis shows brass particles and other cases erratic ring operation has been visibly noted.

We are interested in trying out the solution he recommends: flexible flinger disks attached directly to the shaft.

http://www.tricomfg.com/store/ProdLineInfo.asp?ProdLine...dSeg=FluidProtection

Has anyone used these? Good or bad experiences?
Any other sources for this product?

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[JJPellin]

We have attempted to use this technology but have had no luck so far. First allow me to explain how we reached this point. We have also had lots of problems with brass oil rings. We changed our standard over to non-metallic oil rings (Lytech?) a few years ago. We are replacing the standard brass rings with this fiber reinforced polymer material for any pump that comes into the shop. This is the standard material used by Sulzer and Flowserve for new pumps. We have had much less trouble with these rings than we had with the old brass rings. But in some pumps we still have problems. I have one of those flexible rubber finger disks on my desk and have been trying to find an application. So far, they make those in two sizes: too small and too large. As it happens, any pump where we attempted to install one, the small size could not be installed because the inner ring wasn't big enough. And the larger one wouldn't work because we would have had to cut off almost all of the rubber ring and what remained would not be flexible enough to put it into the housing. In a couple of pumps where the size looked like it would work, there was an obstacle in the housing that made it impractical. Usually this takes the form of a trough down the inside of the housing that diverts oil around to the backside of the thrust bearings. I am told that they are in the process of designing a mid-size version of this product that will be a better fit for our typical size of pump. In the meantime, I will keep looking for an application to try it out.

 

[whorley]

We have used this flexible disc in a horizontal pump application. I was involved in testing the first prototypes a few years ago and we have tried a few samples of different materials. I believe Trico now has the secret nailed down with no creep and no discoloration of the oil.

We have run test versus our old metal slinger rings and we have found a reduction of temperature (10+ F) with the flexible disc.

We put one in the field in December-05 and it is continuing to run with out issue.

We have placed a sizeable order to implement this in our new units.

Trico has provided very good technical support for this product.