Microturbomachinery and Energy Systems Laboratory
■ Non-contact Gas Bearings
- Core technology of oil-free turbomachinery is non-contact gas bearings. We are very specialized in design, prototyping and testing of advanced foil bearings with various sizes, from 5mm up to 200mm in diameter. Bellkim Energy has exclusive license of foil bearings developed at University of Texas at Arlington. Core competency of our team is thorough knowledge and know-how on manufacturing process of foil bearings and their operating characteristics. Bellkim Energy helped many companies to develop oil-free bearing technology through technology transfer program.
- Based on extensive experience of many different bearing sizes and unique scaling law developed internally, scaling up/down of existing foil bearing design is accomplished without design/test iterations. Many our foil bearings applied to the commercial products are from initial prototype bearing without any further design change during entire development period, which often takes a few years.
Related technical papers
Radial Foil Bearings
Axial Foil Bearings
■ Flexible Coupling
- Flexible couplings are used to connect high speed motors/generators to either compressors or expander turbines
- Traditional off-the shelf couplings do not meet the high speed/high power requirements, and Bellkim designs various bellows and diaphragm flexible couplings tailored to specific speed/torque requirements considering rotor dynamics of entire rotor
- Coupling designs are available for the following applications
8kW/180krpm
100kW/51krpm
140kW/64krpm
350kW/75krpm
■ Oil-free Turbo Compressors and Blowers for Waste Water Treatment and Fuel Cell Systems
■ Motors and Generators
- Bellkim provides a turnkey solution of various oil free high speed motors and generators with custom designed foil bearings.
- Representative products are as follows.
■ Customized Test Rigs
- Typically foil bearing developments need a series of unique tests before applying them to final systems. From years of onsite test support of various high speed turbomachinery, our team offers the best solutions from a simple component level test to full scale rig/actual system tests