Commissioning of a Novel Test Apparatus for the Identification of the Dynamic Coefficients of Large Tilting Pad Journal Bearings

The commissioning of the testing system involved several aspects and presented various issues. This work focuses on measuring systems and data acquisition of high-frequency data (forces, accelerations and relative displacements) and on data processing for the identification of the bearing dynamic coefficients. The identification procedure is based on the linearity assumption and the principle of superposition, operating in the frequency domain with the fast Fourier transforms of the applied forces and displacement signals. First results, referred to a 4-pad bearing, are in satisfactory agreement with theoretical ones.