OIL FILM BEARING LUBRICATION, MORGOIL®’S LATEST

SYSTEMS1
Gabriel Francisco Royo2
Mortimer Daniel Williams3
Peter Norman Osgood4

Abstract
The Morgoil bearing lubrication system is a critical part of any rolling mill equipped with
oil film bearings. The lubrication system is usually located in an area where it is not
highly visible so is not always the first equipment to receive maintenance. Improperly
designed or improperly maintained lubrication systems may leak oil, allow roll coolant to
ingress, and can cause bearings to fail, adversely affecting mill uptime. A properly
maintained system is required to maintain bearing reliability, reduce environmental
impact, and reduce lubricant and manpower costs. All these points lead to a more
profitable mill.
Key words: Oil film bearings; Lubrication system; Pumps; Heat exchanger.

1
Technical contribution to the 48th Rolling Seminar – Processes, Rolled and Coated Products, October,
24th-27th, 2011, Santos, SP, Brazil.
2
Vice-President and General Manager, Siemens Industry Inc, Morgoil Bearing Business. 40 Crescent
Street, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
3
Senior Fluids Engineer, Siemens Industry Inc, Morgoil Bearing Business. 40 Crescent Street,
Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
4
Manager of Product Development, Siemens Industry Inc, Morgoil Bearing Business. 40 Crescent
Street, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.

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1 INTRODUCTION

This paper will discuss the general theory of the systems operation; the function of each
major component will be explained for the latest design oil film bearing lubrication
systems. The Morgoil lubrication system has evolved combining theoretical design with
practical mill experience to provide a highly reliable, low maintenance solution. Morgoil
has also experimented with other technical solutions; we discuss some of these
solutions and why they are not employed. The Morgoil lubrication system’s function is to
supply the bearings with the correct quantity of oil, at the correct temperature, and the
correct cleanliness.
Also, realizing that existing mills have legacy lubrication systems, methods to improve
them will be discussed. Repairs and upgrades to increase system reliability, reduce
manpower, reduce lubricant costs, and increase mill uptime will be reviewed. Examples
will be given of how utilizing pre-mounted and piped equipment that is custom designed
for a specific mill can update systems with very short installation times. This allows mills
to gain the improvements of a new lubrication system without the associated costs of
long outages.

2 GENERAL THEORY OF OIL FILM BEARING LUBRICATION SYSTEM

Most lubrication systems built for use with oil film bearings control flow thorugh the use
of orifices operated at a controlled pressure. In order to understand their operations
there are some relationships between pressure, temperature and the bearing nozzles
that should be must be described first. The temperature and pressure of the oil and the
size of the bearing nozzles directly affect the quantity of oil going to the bearings.
The bearing orifices (nozzles) for the radial and thrust bearings are designed for the
length to be > 2.0 times the diameter. This allows for accurate calculation of the flow and
for larger orifice diameters to ensure they do not get plugged. This design has the effect
of making the flow through the orifice not only dependant on the pressure and the
specific gravity the fluid but also its viscosity.
The specific gravity of the lubricant is a constant but the design pressure and the
temperature of the oil must be closely maintained to ensure the proper volume of oil is
supplied to the bearings.
Supplying the proper amount of oil at the correct temperature to the bearings is not only
critical for the proper lubrication of the bearing but also to minimize oil leakage and
water ingress. If the quantity of oil going to the mill stand is too great the chock will fill
with oil and put undo stress on the sealing system. When the gravity drains no longer
have open channel flow the oil backs up in the bearings above the seal level. The oil will
either leak out of the bearing or will cause a vacuum to form drawing roll coolant into the
chock. If the quantity of oil supplied to the bearing is too little the bearing may be
damaged.
In addition to lubricating the bearing, the oil flow also provides the means to effectively
remove heat from the bearing and the back-up rolls. This function is naturally tied
directly to the inlet temperature of the oil flowing into the bearings. A consistent oil
temperature will actually help maintain mill stability. Varying oil temperature will vary the
amount of heat being removed from the backup roll and therefore will vary the amount of
“roll puff”.

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3 RESERVOIRS

Morgoil system reservoirs should have four features that help to ensure properly
conditioned lubricant is sent out to the bearings.
The most important feature is the floating suction; this ensures that oil is drawn from the
top of the tank. The oil on top is in the best condition to lubricate the bearings.
The second and third feature are the large size of the reservoirs and the baffle plate
system that separates it into a dirty end and clean end and slows the migration of the
returning oil to the floating suction giving it time and inducement to release all three
types of contaminants (water, particulate, air). The baffle also helps to mix the oil to help
eliminate different temperature oil layers in the tank. The arrangement of the baffles in
the tank is critical to obtaining a good result. Properly designed Morgoil tanks have a
system of baffles including inclined plates. When purchasing a new system special
attention must be paid to this seemingly unimportant aspect of tank design.
The final feature is the tank heaters that maintain the temperature of the oil and heat the
offline tank for separating water.
Maintaining the correct temperature in the reservoirs serves two major functions. The
temperature in a Morgoil reservoir must be maintained at 45°C to 50°C. This elevated
temperature allows the oil to readily separate contaminants and it allows the heat
exchanger circuit to control the oil temperature to the mill accurately. An even higher
temperature of about 55°C should be maintained when biological contamination is a
concern.
Siemens has done extensive testing on tank heater watt density. Tank heaters must be
less than 0,6 W/cm2 or the oil will become carbonized. Some suppliers use higher Watt
densities and require a pump remains running when the heaters are on. There are
problems with this idea; mainly that the high viscosities used in oil film bearing
applications do not move uniformly through the tank resulting in hot spots that will
damage the oil.
Most oil film bearing lubrication systems are designed with two tanks. The Morgoil
standard operating procedure requires the online tank and offline tank be switched
weekly. This gives the freshly used oil a chance to separate out water and particulate
contamination. After separating out, the water may be readily drained from the bottom of
the tank. The offline tank should be heated to 70°C. This facilitates the rapid removal of
water from the oil.

4 WATER REMOVAL EQUIPMENT

Morgoil lubrications systems require a means to remove coolant from the oil. The
majority of water may be removed by switching tanks and heating the oil, but to achieve
the < 2% water requirement water removal equipment will be required.
Many older mills utilized centrifuges for water removal. These machines required a great
deal of maintenance, were difficult to run properly and could discharge large quantities
of oil into the waste stream if not properly monitored.
New systems utilize vacuum dehydrators. These machines remove water by lowering
the pressure on the process fluid thereby lowering the boiling temperature of the water.
The steam produced is captured, condensed and discharged from the machine. These
machines are low maintenance and effective.

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5 PUMPS

There are generally two system pumps, and in some cases there may be three. Oil film
bearing lubrication systems should always have at least one pump running and one
pump as an automatic stand-by. The system’s electrical controls should automatically
start the stand-by pump on loss of system pressure an alarm must sound when the
stand-by pump is started.
The relief valves should be considered as an integral part of the pumps. The valves only
function is to protect the pumps and system from exceeding the design pressure of the
system components. The pump relief valves are not to be used as system pressure
control valves; relief valves are not designed for this function and will not maintain
pressure properly.
Morgoil currently uses screw type pumps in its systems. These pumps provide a more
consistent pressure, less shearing of the oil, and quieter operation. We have
experimented with VFD motors on our pumps. This does not work well, as varying the
flow through the heat exchanger as the mill speed changes makes proper control of the
oil temperature in the heat exchanger imposable.

6 SYSTEM PRESSURE CONTROLS

The amount of oil required by the radial bearings varies with mill speed. The Morgoil
bearing is basically a pump: as the mill speed increases the Morgoil bearing will move
more oil.
The system back pressure valve is used to maintain system pressure as the flow to the
bearings varies due to speed changes. The system back pressure control valve
maintains the system pressure by porting varying volumes of oil back to the tank. This
maintains a constant system operating pressure supply to the stand pressure control
valves.
The function of the stand pressure control valves is to maintain a constant pressure to
each mill stand. These valves are adjusted during a mill calibration.
Morgoil utilizes direct piloted control valves, which are valves without expensive electro
pneumatic positioners. These valves do not require air to operate. Oil film bearing
lubrication systems do not require the high speed pressure corrections the more
expensive valves provide. Properly sizing these valves is critical however, and must be
done by a competent system designer.
We have experimented with placing the system backpressure control valve before the
heat exchanger to save energy. This creates the same problem as the VFD drive on the
pumps, the oil temperature cannot be accurately controlled.

7 STRAINERS

Morgoil bearings are very dirt tolerant. Extremely large volumes of contaminants below
the 149 µ must build up in a system before they adversely affect the bearings. Normal
tank cleanings (annually for hot mills and every two years for cold mills), the floating
suction, and make up oil generally keep this from being an issue.

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The Morgoil Bearing business has historically used 100 mesh (149 µ) strainers for our
systems. More recently we have specified 200 mesh (74 µ) strainers. The change was
made for new systems to extend the period between heat exchanger cleanings. Mills
may want to upgrade to finer filtration if they are experiencing rapid degradation of their
heat exchanger efficiency due to oil side fouling.

8 SYSTEM TEMPERATURE CONTROL

As described earlier the system temperature control is critical to maintaining the proper
flow of oil to the bearings. If the oil becomes too cold the bearings could be starved of
flow; if too hot the bearings could be flooded. Flooding the bearings allows the return
lines to backup and water to ingress or oil may be lost through the seals.
Morgoil now uses water control ball valves with an electro-pneumatic positioner
controlled by an electronic PID loop controller. The added expense of the fast response
and finer control is warranted for this application. The PID controller may also have
alarm outputs which may be tied into the mills alarm system. The sizing of heat
exchangers and water control valves on Morgoil lubrication systems is extremely critical
to achieving the maximum ±2°C variation. The water control valve and the heat
exchanger cannot be oversized. Special attention must be paid to the minimum and
maximum cooling water temperatures to ensure a heat exchanger and control valve(s)
combination is supplied to properly maintain the oil temperature.

9 POSSIBLE UPGRADES

Any section of the lube system may be replaced on a pallet or multiple pallets. All pallet
type upgrade solutions are specifically designed with pipe orientation, shape and size to
fit the mills specific requirements.
Figure 1 is a complete lubrication system may be supplied on multiple pallets. These are
complete pre-piped, pre-wired palletized systems. This system was supplied to a North
American aluminum rolling mill in two sections. The mill had two slow running stands.
Due to no aqueous roll coolant being used a single tank solution was used. This system
was mounted on mill floor level and employs a unique pumping solution to bring the oil
back to the tank. Morgoil has the perfect mill floor level mounted lubrication system
solution.

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 Figure 1. Full single tank lube system on two pallets.

Figure 2 is a Morgoil Vacuum Dehydrator with lifting frame. These machines are low
maintenance and effective. Most vacuum dehydrators require finer filtration than is found
on oil film bearing lubrication systems to operate and are meant to run on low viscosity
turbine type oils. Morgoil has a patent pending dehydrator that is extremely dirt tolerant
and has been specifically designed to operate on these difficult systems.

Figure 2. Morgoil vacuum dehydrator.

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Figure 3 is a heat exchanger pallet. This unit contains all the necessary hardware
including a PID controller if required to replace the cooling section of a lubrication
system you may now have. A North American steel mill installed this unit. Installation
was completed in a 16 hour downturn. We are adding a new system strainer to a pallet
like the one shown for a North American customer whom needs to replace the strainer in
their system as well as the heat exchanger.

Figure 3. Complete heat exchanger pallet.

Pressure control valves may be supplied pre-piped to facilitate easy and quick of
installation. Accurate dimensions of course must be supplied to ensure the equipment
fits properly.
Various tank heater replacement schemes can be utilized to replace obsolete reservoir
heaters. We have supplied electric heaters mounted in tubes with required plates to
replace steam heaters. We have also supplied side stream heating units as complete
assemblies with heater vessel, pumps, motors, piping and necessary controls and
wiring.

10 CONCLUSION

Oil film bearing issues are not usually caused by a single factor but rather a chain of
problems that eventually become too much for the bearing to handle. Proper
maintenance of the lubrication system can easily break the chain and save bearings,
valuable downtime and labor. Maintaining proper control of the lube oil system will stop
oil leaking from the bearing seals and stop roll coolant ingress. The savings on oil
consumption alone can justify the cost of properly maintaining the system.
The availability of easily installed pallets containing pre-fabricated lubrication system
components will allow mills the opportunity to repair and even upgrade their systems
with little or no extra downtime.

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