Failure Analysis And Improvement Of The Tribological Performance Of Sliding Bearing Tribopair In Integrated Energy Recovery-Pressure Boost Device

Integrated rotary energy recovery-pressure boost device (IERPBD) is the essential component in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination systems. And sliding bearing pair is the vital tribopair in the IERPBD, which guarantee the reliability of the device. However, the polyetheretherketone (PEEK) bearing in the IERPBD occurred early failure during the pre-experiment. To solve this problem, this paper firstly analyzed the reasons and mechanisms of sliding bearing early failure, which suggested that it was attributed to the low elasticity modulus and poor tribological performance of PEEK. Moreover, several improved "hard-to-hard" material combinations were proposed and screened through wear and friction experiments, and found that the WC-6Ni (YN6X)/silicon carbide (SiC) material combination has reasonable physicochemical properties and excellent tribological performance. Finally, the sliding bearing made of YN6X/SiC was equipped in IERPBD to carry out experiments under real working conditions to verify the performance of proposed material combination. The results indicated that YN6X/SiC sliding bearing pair could guarantee the continuous and stable operation of IERPBD, and effectively solve the sliding bearing failure problem.