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Side thrust
provide guides in crosshead piston engine to ensure that the side thrust due
to angularity of the connecting rod is not transmitted to the piston but to the
Crosshead guides. Crosshead also ensures that the piston remains central in
the cylinder thus limiting wear in the liner.
RB 18/10/04 1/14
Crosshead bearing
Crosshead pins are supported in bearings and the traditional way has been to
mount the piston rod at the centre of the pin with a large nut and having two
bearings alongside. This arrangement is like a simply supported beam and
the pin will bend when under load. This gives rise to edge pressures which
break through the oil film resulting in bearing failure. The Sulzer solution is
to mount the bearings on flexible supports. When the pin bends the supports
flex allowing normal bearing contact to be maintained.
In order to minimise the risk of bearing failure the actual force on the oil
within the bearing should be kept within reasonable limits this can be
achieved by having as large a bearing area as possible. Increasing the
diameter of the pin and hence the bearing will minimise the problems as this
not only allows for a large bearing area but it also avoids the problem of pin
bending. Pin bending is further prevented by means of a continuous bearing.
This also avoids the loss of oil which can take place with short bearings. Most
modern engines tend to have single continuous bearings. Oil loss from the
ends of bearings is prevented by means of restrictor plates. Some engine
builders provide booster pumps which increase the oil pressure to the
crosshead during the critical firing period. Cross heads do not have complete
rotary motion and so a complete oil wedge does not form. The use of means
for preventing oil loss are therefore useful in maintaining an oil film between
pin and bearings.
RB 18/10/04 2/14
Crosshead bearing
Description
The crosshead is provided with two guide shoes fitted on the crosshead ends.
The crosshead bearing cap is provided with a cut-out enabling the piston rod
to be assembled with the crosshead journal.
The crosshead bearing is equipped with bearing shells lined with white metal.
Further, the lower shell has an overlay coating.
The piston rod foot rests on the crosshead, and is guided by a pipe in the
crosshead.
A shim is inserted between the piston rod and the crosshead. The piston rod
is fastened to the crosshead by means of studs and nuts.
The thickness of the shim is calculated for each engine in order to match the
different engine layouts
RB 18/10/04 3/14
Crosshead bearing
A telescopic pipe, which supplies lubricating and cooling oil to the crosshead,
crankpin and piston, is mounted on top of one of the guide shoes. The guide
shoe is also fitted with a counterweight in order to balance the weight of the
telescopic pipe.
The outlet pipe for piston cooling oil is mounted on top of the other guide
shoe. The outlet pipe slides within a slotted pipe inside the engine frame, and
from there the oil is led through a control device for each cylinder for the
purpose of checking the temperature and flow before the oil is passed on to
the lube oil tank.
The crosshead is provided with bores for distributing the oil supplied through
the telescopic pipe, partly as cooling oil for the piston, partly as lubricating oil
for the crosshead bearing and guide shoes and through a bore in the
connecting rod> for lubricating the crankpin bearing.
The sliding faces of the guide shoes are lined with cast-on white metal.
The guide shoes are guided by crosshead guides in the engine frame box and
properly secured against displacement by guide strips fastened to the guide
shoes.
The crosshead bearing is tightened together by means of four studs and nuts.
The nuts are tightened by means of hydraulic tools.
The crankpin bearing is fitted with bearing shells lined with white metal and
assembled
in the same manner as the crosshead bearing.
Both the crosshead bearing shells and the crankpin bearing shells are
retained in position by means of screws fitted in the bearing housings.
Question:
In Sulzer engines, there is a separate crosshead lubricating oil pump delivering
oil at 12 to 16 bar for crosshead lubrication.
MAN+B&W uses the same pump to supply oil to main bearings as well as
crosshead at a much reduced pressure (around 3 to 5 bar).
Both engines run satisfactorily without any crosshead problems and certainly
MAN+B&W arrangement is more simple.
The question is what is the difference from design aspect of the crosshead
lubrication arrangements in the two engines that make it necessary to have a
separate high pressure pump in one make of engine, while the other one does
not need such pump?
Answer:
"More than 90% of the circulated oil has the sole purpose of cooling the
bearings. If you study antique machines with open crankcases, you will see that
RB 18/10/04 4/14
Crosshead bearing
the amount of oil for lubrication is a few drops per minute. This is enough for
maintaining the oil film in the bearing and with an open crankcase the friction
heat is removed by air-cooling. Modern engines have closed crankcaes and a
much higher bearing load - hence the need for oil cooling.
In a main bearing, the oil is pumped into the upper shell and it will cool the
upper part of the journal. Since the shaft is rotating, it is cooled on all sides
and because the oil film thickness is very small in the loaded part, the shaft
will cool the loaded bearing half as well.
A crosshead bearing is only oscillating and the lower shell is always loaded. The
cooling oil must be injected between shaft (crosshead pin) and lower bearing.
In contrast, the Sulzer croshead has a plain lower bearing without channels. In
order to inject oil between pin and bearing, they have to supply oil at a much
higher pressure. The injection will take place at around 20 degrees crank angle
before TDC, where the cylinder pressure is still low and upward inertia forces
on piston is still high. There is a short interval, in which the bearing pressure is
lower than the oil pressure"
Sulzer
MAN B&W
RB 18/10/04 5/14
Crosshead bearing
The oil film generated in this manner can be rather thin. This makes the demands for pin
surface roughness and oil wedge geometry very important parameters for the assembly
to function. A further requirement is effective cooling which is ensured by the transverse
oil grooves. The pin surface is superfinished.The lower shell is executed with a special
surface geometry (embedded arc) which extends over a 120 degree arc, and ensures a
uniform load distribution on the bearing surface in contact with the pin. The lower shell is
coated with an overlayer, which enables the pin sliding geometry to conform with the
bearing surface.
The guide shoes, which are mounted on the fore and aft ends of the crosshead pins,
slide between guides and transform the reciprocating movement of the piston/piston rod
via the connecting rod into a rotational movement of the crankshaft.
RB 18/10/04 6/14
Crosshead bearing
The guide shoe is positioned relatively to the crosshead pin with a positioning
pin screwed into the guide shoe, the end of the positioning pin protrudes into
a hole in the crosshead pin and restricts the rotational movement of the crosshead
pin when the engine is turned with the piston rod disconnected.
The guide strips are bolted on to the inner side of the guide shoes and ensure the
correct position of the piston rod in the fore-and-aft direction. This alignment and the
clearance between the guide strips and guide is made with shims between the strips and
the guide shoe.
The sliding surfaces of the guide shoes and guide strips are provided with cast-on white
metal and furnished with transverse oil supply grooves and wedges
Guide Clearance
The usual way of checking guide clearance is by means of a feeler gauge with the
piston forced hard against one face and the total clearance taken at the other face.
This gives a reasonable estimation as wear should be approximately the same in the
ahead and astern faces. A more accurate idea can be gained by chocking the piston
centrally in its bore than measuring the clearance at each face. This will also give the
athwartships alignment. The edges of the guide shoes are also white metal faced and
these run against rubbing strips. Clearance at these faces can be checked with
feelers and this gives the fore and aft alignment.
Fwd/Aft Clearance
Guide bar
Port/Stbd Clearance
Guide Shoe
Guide clearances are usually adjusted by means of shims between the
hardened steel guide bars and the mounting points. Bolts are slackened off allowing
RB 18/10/04 7/14
Crosshead bearing
slotted shims to be inserted or removed. Note, care must be taken when handling
these shims.
Checks Observations
Oil Flow OK, similarity
Uneven
RB 18/10/04 8/14
Crosshead bearing
Missing
Twisted
White metal OK
Squeezed
Cracks
Loose
Missing
Crosshead guides OK
Scratches
Corrosion
Silvery White
Oil pan OK, clean
White metal fragments
Oil condition OK
Dark
Water traces
Checks Observations
Whitemetal • OK
• Wiping
• Hard Contact
• Oil Starvation
• Cracks
• Crack Cluster
• Loose
• Missing
• Spark Erosion
• Corrosion
Transitions • OK
• Oil wedge • Ragged Ridges
• Bore relief • Wiping
• Tang, run out • Disappeared
RB 18/10/04 9/14
Crosshead bearing
Journal/Pin • OK
• Spark Erosion
• Corrosion
• Silvery White
• Scratches
Back of Shell • OK
• Fretting
• Trapped Hard Particles
Types of failure
Various types of failure occur in crosshead bearing linings. Some, if found early, can be
rectified so that the bearing can satisfactorily continue in service, in other forms of failure
the lining must be condemned and the bearing remetalled.
Failure of the white-metal in some less severe forms usually progresses so that
eventually the bearing must be remetalled.
The forms of failure are as follows.
In the event of excessive local heat input, the fatigue strength of the white metal/tin
aluminum will decrease, and thermal cracks are likely to develop at the normal dynamic
stress level.
c) High local loading: for example, if, during running-in, the load is concentrated on a few
local high spots of the white metal.
2. Squeezing of white-metal so that oil grooves are partially blocked or obliterated; oil
holes may be partially blocked, or wholly blocked in extreme cases.
RB 18/10/04 10/14
Crosshead bearing
3. Failure by overheating, when the bearing surface of the white-metal becomes plastic
or even melts.
4. Corrosion.
Failure by corrosion is usually found when examination is carried out on the bearings,
corrosion of the white-metal usually being accompanied by corrosion of the crosshead
pins. The form of the corrosion will depend on the nature of the contamination of the
lubricating oil.
As there are many and widely varying causes of failure, each case must be considered
individually and the cause ascertained from the findings of careful examination. Bearings
have been known to fail on new engines when the engine is being worked up to full
power for the shop trials, or after many years of satisfactory service.
b) Wiping of overlayer manifests itself by parts of the overlay being of the overlayer
being smeared out. Wiping of overlayer can take place when running-in a new bearing;
however, if the wiping is excessive, the cause must be found and rectified. One of the
major causes of wiping is pin/journal surface roughness.
c) White metal wiping is due to metal contact between the sliding surfaces which
causes increased frictional heat, resulting in plastic deformation (wiping).
RB 18/10/04 11/14
Crosshead bearing
2. Corrosive attack:
a) If the oil develops a week acid
b) If the salt water content in the lube oil is higher than 1%. The
water will attack the white metal, and result in formation of a very hard
black tin-oxide encrustation (SnO) which may scratch and roughen the
pin surface.
Ships using heavy fuel are timed to inject fuel early to obtain good combustion. When
during maneuvering such engine uses diesel oil , which is faster burning, the rate of
pressure rise increases and the maximum combustion pressure may well exceed that for
which the engine was designed. Therefore fuel quality lever or VIT needs to be adjusted.
Excessive combustion pressure will show up as by cylinder relief valve lifting.
Formation of sharp ridges or incorrect inclination of the transition to the bearing surface
will seriously disrupt the flow of oil to the bearing surface, causing oil starvation at this
location.
Oil transitions are reconditioned by carefully cleaning accumulated metal with a straight
edge or another suitable tool. Oil wedges should be rebuilt to the required inclination
(maximum 1/100) and length,
For crosshead bearings, the wear limit is confined to about 50% reduction of the oil
wedge length
Journal Roughness
RB 18/10/04 12/14
Crosshead bearing
Repairs of Journals/Pins
a) Crosshead pins
Pin surface roughness should be less than 0.1 Ra . If the Ra value is higher than 0.1 µm,
the pin can often be repolished on the spot,
If there are also deep scratches, these must be leveled out carefully with 3M polishing
paper, or similar, before the polishing process is started.
Use a steel ruler, or similar, to support the polishing paper, as the fingertips are too
flexible.
The surface roughness after polishing should be 0.05 Ra.
a) Turn the crank throw concerned to 90° before BDC on the exhaust side.
RB 18/10/04 13/14
Crosshead bearing
c) The wear limit for a crosshead bearing shell is confined to 50% reduction of the
oil wedge length (L).
Inspection Records
RB 18/10/04 14/14