Study on influencing factors for wear of water-lubricated rubber stern tube bearing

The water-lubricated rubber stern bearing is one of the key components of ships. Investigating the influence of factors on its wear life has an important significance to guarantee the safety navigation of ships. This study aimed to explore how the lubrication state, load and rotational speed influence on the wear mass loss of the water-lubricated rubber stern tube bearing. A CBZ-1 tribo-tester was used to conduct the sliding wear tests between rubber disc and brass disc rubbing pairs under the water-lubricated conditions or dry conditions. The orthogonal tests was used to quantitate how the different lubrication states, loads and rotational speeds influence on the wear life, and were analyzed and compared based on calculations of orthogonal test. The results showed that only the lubrication states had significant influence on the wear life. Compared with the lubrication state, the influence of the load on the wear mass loss was almost negligible. The lubrication states, rotational speeds and loads affected the wear mass loss of stern tube bearing gradual decline. In actual operation, it is most important to ensure the good lubrication for the water-lubricated rubber stern tube bearing, the imparters of load and rotational speed are considered followed.