Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Characteristics of carbon ber phenolic composite

for journal bearing materials
Seong Su Kim, Dong Chang Park, Dai Gil Lee

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, ME3221, Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu,
Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea
Available online 15 June 2004

Abstract
Journal bearing materials are required to have special characteristics such as compatibility with rubbing interface materials,
embeddability for particles and wear debris, conformability to accommodate misalignment, thermal and corrosion resistance. Although white metals or babbitt metals used in most journal bearing have almost the required characteristics, they have possibility of
seizure between the bearing material and the journal when the oil lm is broken.
In this study, a hybrid composite journal bearing composed of carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite liner and metal
backing was manufactured to solve the seizure problem of metallic journal bearing materials because the carbon ber has selflubricating ability and the phenolic resin has thermal resistance characteristics. To estimate the wear resistance of carbon ber
phenolic composite, wear tests were performed at several pressures and velocities. The oil absorption characteristics, coecient of
thermal expansion, strength and stiness of the composite were also tested. Using the measured stiness values, the thermal residual
stresses in the composite were calculated to check the reliability of the composite journal bearing.

2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Carbon ber reinforced phenolic; Hybrid composite journal bearing; Wear volume; Friction coecient; Axiomatic design; Co-cure
bonding

1. Introduction
The major problem of white metal journal bearing
used in large marine vessels is the seiziure between the
journal and bearing when the lubricant lm is broken
under heavy load, or low velocity applications, or start
and stop periods.
To solve the seizure problem, polymers are widely
used in the parts of bearings, gears, and oil sealings
because the friction coecient of polymers is much low
compared to that of metallic materials due to their selflubrication properties [1].
However, the low mechanical strength, low thermal
conductivity and large thermal expansion of polymers
limit the wide applications of polymer bearings. In order
to overcome these inferior properties of neat polymers,

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-42-869-3221; fax: +82-42-8695221.
E-mail addresses: dglee@kaist.ac.kr, passion002@kaist.ac.kr (D.G.
Lee).

0263-8223/$ - see front matter
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2004.04.057

reinforcements in either ber or powder form are usually

embedded in polymers to make composites.
Phenolics among several types of plastics for bearing
materials are largely used because the phenolics operate
satisfactory with steel or bronze journals when lubricated
with oil, water, or other liquids. They have also good resistance to seizure. One main disadvantage of the phenolics
is its low thermal conductivity about 0.35 W/m K, which
is about 1/150 of steel, which can result in bearing failure
by charring. When the phenolics are reinforced with high
thermal conductivity bers such as carbon bers, the heat
dissipation problem may be overcome.
The tendency to subject the bearing surfaces to an
ever-increasing range of thermal, mechanical and environmental stresses has inevitably posed new problems in
friction behavior of materials. Conventional lubricants
are unable to lubricate eectively at high temperatures.
The alternative is to use thin lms of solid lubricants like
carbon interposed between surface of conventional
materials in contact or to develop new composite
materials with solid lubricant reinforcement which
intrinsically exhibit low friction. Although there have

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S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

been a large number of studies on the friction and wear

characteristics of carbon reinforced polymer composite
[25], high load and low velocity applications of composite journal bearing to large vessels are rare. Also, the
wear characteristics of the composite with respect to the
oil absorption ratio should be claried for the wide
application of composite materials.
Several investigations of composite journal bearings
have been carried out. Most of them, however, are related to the metal composite or PTFE liner. Sharma
investigated bearing characteristics of cast ZA-27 (zinc
aluminum)/graphite composite materials with graphite
particle content varying from 16 wt.% under lubricated, semi-dry, and dry conditions [6], in which the
composite bearings were able to run up to the regimes of
boundary lubrication without seizure. Zhang manufactured three kinds of metalplastic multilayer composite
journal bearings, which were composed of a steel
backing, a middle layer of sintered porous bronze and a
surface layer of polytetrauoroethylene (PTFE) lled
with Pb or Cu2 O powders [7].
In this work, the material properties of carbon ber
reinforced phenolic composites were measured. Then the
manufacturing method of hybrid composite journal
bearing with this material was developed. Using the
measured material properties, the stress analysis of a
large journal bearing was performed using nite element
method to assess the reliability of the composite journal
bearing.

2. Mechanical properties of the carbon ber reinforced

phenolic composite
Two types of ber reinforced composites such as
unidirectional asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composite and carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite
were studied. The asbestos ber reinforced phenolic
composites have been employed in large stern journal
bearings for supporting the propeller shaft of a ship
because they have the high performance per price
among the composites although the health hazard of
this material is recently a great concern. The large
asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composite bearings
are usually manufactured by winding asbestos bers
with resin or resin precursor impregnated on a mandrel,
followed by curing at elevated temperatures.
The carbon ber reinforced phenolic composites
studied in this work were 8-harness satin weave. The
ber was PAN (Polyacrylonitrile) based T300 and the
matrix was resol-type phenolic. A carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite was prepared by laying up
prepregs and curing them with the suggested cure cycle
as shown in Fig. 1.
A thermo-mechanical analyzer (TMA) was used to
determine the CTE (coecient of thermal expansion) of

T (C)
155

105
80

40

100 125 185 235

355

time (min)

Fig. 1. Cure cycle for carbon phenolic composite.

material by measuring the dimensional change of carbon

ber reinforced phenolic specimens with respect to
temperature [8]. The CTEs in the three principal material coordinate systems are denoted by a1 ; a2 , and a3 as
shown in Fig. 2. Each specimen was heated from the
room temperature of 20220 C gradually and the
dimensional change was recorded in the TMA 2940
Analyzer (TA Instrument, USA). The test results are
listed in Table 1.
Generally, phenolics absorb moisture and swell because they have oxygen atoms which have polarity. The
swelling can cause the dimensional change of journal
bearing if the lubricant contains moisture. In case of oil
which has no polarity, however, the expansion of specimen occurs by the penetration of oil through voids
which are distributed throughout in the composites. The
model developed to describe the penetration of oil into
carbon ber reinforced phenolic material is based on the
anisotropic nature of the composite material. The oil
may be penetrated into the material by a two-step
mechanism: First, the oil is absorbed by capillary action
into voids associated with bers within the ber threads;
then, a slow diusion of oil into the void of bulk phenolic resin takes place [9].
In this test, the specimens for swelling were prepared
according to ASTM D 5515-97 [10] as shown in Fig. 3.
These specimens were immersed in SAE 30 oil for 2 h

1: Hoop
2: Radial
3: Axial

2
6
6

Fig. 2. Specimen [mm] for TMA.

Table 1
Coecients of thermal expansion (CTE) of composite materials
Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

Hoop

Radial

Axial

7.19
1.23

27.63
40.7

22.01
1.84

S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

Table 6
Shear strength and modulus of the composite materials

1: Hoop
2: Radial
3: Axial

45
1

361

Materials

13
directions

23
directions

Shear strength
(MPa)

Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

34.5
75.0

17.2
17.5

Shear modulus
(GPa)

Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

12.5
(a)

(b)

2.5
5.77

1.4
3.75

Fig. 3. Specimen [mm] for swelling test.

determine the engineering constants of the composite

materials. Five tests were carried out for each test type,
from which the average orthotropic composite
mechanical properties were calculated and listed in
Tables 36. From these results, it was found that
properties of carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite
were better than those of asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composite in every respect.

Table 2
Swelling (%) of composite materials
Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

Hoop

Radial

Axial

0.03
0.01

0.11
0.09

0.12
0.02

Table 3
Compressive strength (MPa) of the composite materials
Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

1 (hoop)

2 (radial)

3 (axial)

86.2
220

105.3
490

75.3
220

Table 4
Tensile strength and elastic modulus of the composite materials
Materials

1 (hoop)

Elastic
modulus
(GPa)

Asbestos
phenolic
Carbon
phenolic

13.3

2 (radial)
3.0

3 (axial)
3.5

73.2

14.3

50.7

Tensile
strength
(MPa)

Asbestos
phenolic
Carbon
phenolic

82.0

11.1

15.6

130

30.0

130

Table 5
Poissons ratio of the composite materials
Asbestos phenolic
Carbon phenolic

t12

t13

t23

0.496
0.2

0.442
0.07

0.401
0.06

under the oil temperatures of 25 C. The swelling rate is

dened as follows:
Swelling %

La  Lb
 100
Lb

3. Wear and friction characteristics of the composite

materials
The composite plate was cut and machined to produce hexahedral shape of size 5 mm5 mm 6 mm as
shown in Fig. 4. The wear tests were performed using a
pin-on-disk type arrangement shown in Fig. 5. The steel
plate was 240 mm in diameter and 12 mm in thickness.
The composite specimens were slid against the steel plate
at several dierent speeds and load. The friction forces
of the specimens were measured by a strain-gage bridge
which was bonded on the specimen holder. The wear
volume of the composite was calculated by the weight
loss measurement. The weight loss of the composite
specimen was measured by an electronic balance with
0.1 mg resolution.
For each test, the surface of the steel plate was
polished to a roughness of about 0.2 lm. The PV
value (P: pressure, V: speed) of 2.0 MPa m/s was used,
which was similar to the operating condition of large
vessels.
The wear volumes of the carbon phenolic and
asbestos phenolic composite specimens were measured
as a function of sliding time at two dierent P and V
with constant PV value of 2.0 MPa m/s. As shown in
Fig. 6, signicant dierences in wear volume between the

where La length after immersion; Lb length before

immersion.
The length change of specimens is measured with a
digital vernier caliper and a digital micrometer. The
swelling data measured at 25 C are listed in Table 2.
Mechanical tests such as tensile, compressive and
Iosipescu test for shear properties were performed to

Sliding direction

6
5

Fig. 4. Specimen [mm] for wear test with sliding direction.

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S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

Specimen

Strain gauge
Photo-type
sensor

Disk

Counter
weight
Pneumatic
cylinder

Weight

Frequency
converter

Motor

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the pin-on-disk type wear tester.

Wear volume (10-5cm3)

400

300

200

100

0
0

50

100

150

Time (min)
Fig. 6. Wear volume of the carbon phenolic and asbestos phenolic
composites with respect to sliding time at the same PV value. N:
Asbestos phenolic (P: 1.2 MPa, V: 1.7 m/s), r: Asbestos phenolic (P:
1.6 MPa, V: 1.25 m/s), }: Carbon phenolic (P: 1.2 MPa, V: 1.7 m/s),
j: Carbon phenolic (P: 1.6 MPa, V: 1.25 m/s).

two materials were observed. The wear volume of carbon ber reinforced phenolic composites was little
changed with respect to load and velocity, but the wear
volume of asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composites
increased much with respect to load and velocity. Also
the wear volume of asbestos ber reinforced phenolic
composites was more dependent on the pressure than
the speed at constant PV value. When the pressure increased and speed decreased, the wear volume increased
as shown in Fig. 6 and wear surface of this condition
was rougher than that of another condition as shown in
Fig. 7(a) and (b). This implies that the large void of
asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composites directly
inuenced the wear behavior of the composite greatly.
If the stress due to the friction force exceeded the
shear strength of the specimen, a crack initiated and
propagated along the void of the specimen, which

plucked o the specimen as shown in Fig. 7(a), consequently large wear volume occurred.
For the carbon ber reinforcement phenolic composites, the wear volumes were less than those of the
asbestos reinforced phenolic composites under the same
values of PV because of the self lubricating capability
and high conductivity of carbon ber and the ber
fracture and material in the adherent membrane were
observed as shown in Fig. 7(b). When the two sliding
surfaces come into contact, asperities of the softer surface were easily deformed and some were fractured by
the repeated loading action. These repeated loading
action caused crack nucleation under the very near
surface and further loading and deformation caused
cracks to extend and propagate, joining neighboring
ones. The cracks propagated along the week part, i.e.,
interface between ber and matrix, the ber fracture
occurred by repeated loading.
The friction coecients of two materials were obtained under the constant normal force of 40 N and the
speed of 1.25 m/s by dividing friction force by the
vertical force as shown in Fig. 8. The dry mean friction
coecients of the asbestos ber reinforced phenolic
and the carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite
were 0.27 and 0.16, respectively. The reason for the low
friction coecients of the carbon phenolic composite is
the lubricating action of carbon bers. The friction
coecients of carbon phenolic composite in the initial
transient state were higher than that in the steady state
because the material adherent in the membrane reduced the friction in the steady state [11]. In case of
asbestos ber reinforced phenolic composite, the
material adherent in the membrane of steel counterface
was discontinuous and nonuniform as shown in Fig.
7(a). Because of poor adhesion of material adherent in
the membrane to the substrate, the membrane was
peeled o during sliding so that a roll-like wear debris
was produced. The high wear volume and friction
coecient of the asbestos ber reinforced phenolic
composite was attributed to its poor ability to form a
continuous material adherent in the membrane thereby
providing inadequate protection when the soft polymer
was damaged by rough asperities on the harder counterface.
The carbon ber reinforced phenolic composite
specimens were also tested with respect to the oil
absorption amount into the composite to simulate the
actual operating condition for journal bearing. The oil
absorption ratio (%) of the specimens immersed in SAE
30 oil for 13 weeks was listed in Table 7. Fig. 9 shows
the test results in which the wear volume in the wet
friction was smaller than that in the dry friction due to
the oil lm layer on the metal disc. The oil absorbed into
the specimen drained as the volume of loaded specimen
was worn-out, which formed the oil lm layer. The
specimens immersed in the oil longer than 2 weeks had

S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

363

Fig. 7. Wear surface of the two composite materials. (a) Asbestos phenolic (P: 1.2 MPa, V: 1.7 m/s), (b) Asbestos phenolic (P: 1.6 MPa, V: 1.25 m/s),
(c) Carbon phenolic (P: 1.2 MPa, V: 1.7 m/s), (d) Carbon phenolic (P: 1.6 MPa, V: 1.25 m/s).

18

P: 1.2MPa, V: 1.7m/s
P: 30N V:1.7m/s

Asbestos phenolic composite

60

12

Wear volume(10 -5cm3)

Friction force (N)

15

9
Carbon phenolic composite
6

40

oilless
0.4%
0.90%
1%

20

0
0

2000

4000

6000

8000

Time (sec)

Fig. 8. Friction force of composite specimens w.r.t. sliding time

(normal force: 1.6 MPa, velocity: 1.25 m/s).

30

60

90

120

150

Fig. 9. Wear volume of the carbon-phenolic composite w.r.t. sliding

time and the oil absorption amount.

4. Design of the hybrid composite journal bearing

4.1. Design process
Table 7
Oil absorption (%) of carbon phenolic composite w.r.t. time
1 week

2 weeks

3 weeks

0.4

0.9

1.0

similar characteristics of wear volume, because the oil

absorption amount saturated.

The dimensions of the composite journal bearing

investigated in this work are shown in Fig. 10. The
angular velocity x of the journal is 78.0 rev/min in the
clockwise direction.
In case of asbestos ber reinforced phenolic journal
bearing, which is tted in a metal housing, the thickness
of composite should be more than 45 mm to prevent the
buckling of composite bearing due to large CTEs and

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S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

40

900

R385.6
Shaft diameter : 770
145

340

Fig. 10. Stern journal bearing [mm].

swelling in the radial direction and residual stresses

caused by interference tting. In the actual running, the
journal bearings made of asbestos phenolic composite
were failed by these factors.
In this work, the design of hybrid journal bearing was
suggested to solve the above problems. The thickness of
composite was 4 mm determined by considering the
results of wear test. The stacking sequence of the composite is [0/90]3s from the previous study [12]. Since the
maximum compressive stress in the composite journal
bearing occurred in the hoop direction, so the warp
direction of carbon ber reinforced fabric composite
was aligned to the hoop direction of journal bearing.
The co-cure bonding manufacturing of composite
bearing was illustrated in Fig. 11.
4.2. Stress analysis of the composite journal bearing
Using the material properties obtained, the stress and
strain distributions in the composite journal bearing
were calculated by nite element method under the assumed operating conditions. The major assumption was
that the temperature and pressure of the composite

bearing were equal to the mean values of the lubrication

oil. In case of actual journal bearings, the temperature
and pressure continuously change, therefore, they are
locally dierent. In this study, however, the nominal
bearing pressure and mean temperature rise were used to
investigate the macroscopic deformation of composite
bearing. The mean temperature rise was calculated by
adding the two contributions: the actual mean temperature rise of the oil lm and the equivalent temperature
rise to give the same dimensional change due to bearing
swelling caused by oil penetration.
DTtotal DTfilm DTswelling

where DTfilm temperature rise of oil lm, DTswelling

equivalent temperature rise by swelling.
The equivalent temperature rise of 42 C due to
swelling was obtained by dividing the swelling strain
with the CTE of the composite. The mean temperature
rise of oil lm obtained by nite dierence method was
10 C under the average pressure of 0.6 MPa. Therefore,
the estimated total mean temperature rise was 52 C.
Since the steel housing thickness was 45 mm, which was
very thick compared to the composite bearing thickness

Bagging film
Breather

Sealant

Steel backing
Prepreg
Release film
Bagging film
(a)
Key groove
Steel backing

Composite lining
(b)

Fig. 11. (a) Co-cure bonding manufacturing, (b) Hybrid composite

journal bearing.

Fig. 12. Axisymmetry modeling of hybrid composite journal bearing

for FE-analysis.

S.S. Kim et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 359366

365

Fig. 13. Stress distribution in the hoop direction of hybrid composite journal bearing.

and most heat generated in the oil lm ew out through

the side leakage of oil due to the higher heat capacity of
oil than that of steel, the steel housing was assumed as a
rigid body. Axisymmetry modeling was analyzed and yaxis symmetry boundary conditions were used for the
cross-sectional area as shown in Fig. 12. Another key
assumption of this analysis was the perfect bonding
between composite and steel backing.
The FE-analysis results show that the maximum
compressive stress of 92.5 MPa in the hoop direction
occurs at the edge of composite bearing as shown in Fig.
13. Since this value is much lower than the compressive
strength of the composite, 220 MPa in the transverse
direction, the failure of composite bearing is safe.

bearing was veried by stress analysis results. From this

work, it has been found that the hybrid composite
journal bearing may solve the problems of conventional
journal bearings such as white metal lining and polymeric journal bearings.

5. Conclusion

References

In this work, the hybrid composite journal bearing

made of carbon ber reinforced phenolic was designed
to solve the seizure problem of white metal lining journal bearing and hygrothermal residual stress with
interference tting of polymeric journal bearing. The
friction and wear characteristics of the carbon ber
reinforced phenolic composites and the asbestos ber
reinforced phenolic composites were measured and
found that the former had superior characteristics to
that of the latter. Especially, the carbon ber reinforced
phenolic composites was not susceptible to change of
load and velocity under the same PV value (P: pressure,
V: speed). The wear volume of the carbon ber reinforced composites saturated with oil was less than half
of the dry specimen. The dry friction coecient of carbon ber reinforced phenolic was about 60% of the
asbestos ber reinforced phenolic under the same PV
value. The safety of the hybrid composite journal

Acknowledgements
This work has been supported in part by National
Research Laboratory Project of Ministry of Science and
Technology in part by BK 21. Their supports are
gratefully acknowledged.

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