Several studies have been carried out in order to describe the impact of
water-contaminated lubricants on lubrication performance. One approach considers the
water-contaminated oil as a homogeneous lubricant with physical characteristics varying
with water concentration. The presented work is being achieved in order to experimentally
validate this theory. First investigations showed that the variation of contaminated
lubricant viscosity has the most significant effect on lubricating performance.
Consequently, the lubricant viscosity is the only parameter taken into account in this
study. Thus, based on the rheological measurements, water-in-oil emulsion viscosity has
been modelled according to water concentration and temperature. Water concentration was
considered relatively to total mass of oil: the mass concentration varied then from 0 to
7% and temperature from 10 to 80 °C. Viscosity modelling was then used to perform the
numerical simulations of a hydrodynamic thrust bearing supplied with water contaminated
oil. Finally, the experimental validation will be done by measuring various bearing
characteristics like the film/pad temperature, the film thickness and the friction torque
on a tilting pad thrust bearing test rig.