US 11,898,559 B2
Gear pump with cooled journal bearings
Mark W. Shoemaker, Pecatonica, IL (US); and Zachary Allen Ray Le Duc, Rockford, IL (US)
Assigned to Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation, Charlotte, NC (US)
Filed by Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation, Charlotte, NC (US)
Filed on Oct. 21, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/507,498.
Prior Publication US 2023/0127244 A1, Apr. 27, 2023
Int. Cl. F01C 21/06 (2006.01); F03C 2/00 (2006.01); F03C 4/00 (2006.01); F04C 2/08 (2006.01); F04C 15/00 (2006.01)
CPC F04C 2/084 (2013.01) [F04C 15/0026 (2013.01); F04C 15/0096 (2013.01); F04C 2240/50 (2013.01); F04C 2240/60 (2013.01)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A fuel supply system comprising:
a gear pump for moving fuel from a fuel tank to a combustor of a gas turbine engine;
the gear pump includes:
a pair of gear members having teeth in engagement and received within a housing;
the housing defining an inlet and an outlet and having end plates;
the gears having shaft portions on each of two sides of each of the two gears, the shaft portions being mounted in journal bearings;
the journal bearings each having a gear side face adjacent one of the two gears, and a remote face on a remote side of the journal bearing remote from each of the two gears, and there being a plurality of heat pipes in at least one of the journal bearings, the heat pipes moving heat from the gear face of the at least one of the journal bearings to the remote face;
the plurality of heat pipes being enclosed by the housing, and extending generally in an axial direction from an end adjacent the gear face to an end adjacent the remote face; and
wherein the heat pipe includes an outer housing enclosing a wick, a chamber within the wick, and a refrigerant fluid, wherein the wick moving the refrigerant in a liquid phase from a cool end of the heat pump adjacent the remote face in a direction toward a hot end of the heat pump adjacent the gear face, such that the liquid phase refrigerant is heated at the hot end and evaporates into a vapor state, and moves through the chamber in a direction towards the cool side, and the vapor phase refrigerant is cooled at the cool side to a liquid state such that the refrigerant circulates from the cool side to the hot side to move the heat from the gear face of the journal bearing to the remote face of the journal bearing.