CH Bearing Features Standardized Design to Shorten Manufacturing Lead Times

For the past several years, Kingsbury Inc. has been revamping the design of its CH System, a combination fluid-film thrust and journal bearing. One of the goals of the revamped CH System was to standardize as many features and components as possible, as this would facilitate manufacturing and appreciably shorten lead times.

Kingsbury engineers decided to reduce the number of standard configurations from nine to four and to make the new units adaptable to a wider range of shaft sizes. In mid-2012, Kingsbury booked its first order for the smallest size of revamped units, designated CH-1 and C-1, while the technical staff finalized details on the other three configurations.

The system consists of a CH housing that contains two thrust bearings and a journal shell to support the shaft load, and a separate C housing with a journal bearing to support the drive end of the shaft. The machine is positioned between the two units.

The CH System is suitable for pump applications, as the sliding velocities and bearing loads are typically moderate. The oil circulator, working in tandem with the thrust collar, serves as a viscous pump and delivers oil not only to the non-drive end thrust and journal bearings but also to the isolated drive-end journal bearing.

Lubricant is cooled in a heat exchanger integrated into the CH unit, so the system provides everything required except the piping between the two units. The self-contained CH unit does away with the considerable expense of a lube skid and assures that oil is always circulating to the bearings while the shaft is turning, thereby making a backup lubrication system unnecessary.