A numerical investigation into the effect of the supports on the vibration of rotating shafts

Abstract

Vibration is typically encountered by rotating equipment during its start-up, running
operation and shutdown. The severity of the oscillation, which depends on the critical speed
and natural frequencies of the system, could cause serious malfunction of the device and affect
its operating performance. A simplified lumped parameter model of a rotor system is typically
used for the study of the shaft dynamics of a single rotor on bearing supports. Bearing supports
are the means of connecting a device between the rotor and supporting structure, which are
of different forms and designs. They can be a simple bushing, rolling-element or journal types
for light, medium and large load applications respectively. Particularly in this work, flexible
supports made of rubber are considered by implementing viscoelastic material into the rotor
bearing system. Viscoelastic material is well known to be a good choice for use within isolation
systems, due to it being easily available and possessing high damping characteristics over a
wide temperature and frequency range. However, the change of mechanical properties with
frequency and temperature makes it difficult to design a viscoelastically device that works over
a large range of operating conditions. Thus numerical analysis, which focuses on the simple
rotor model supported on a range of different flexible supports, will be presented and compared.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Emiliano rustighi: orcid.org/0000-0001-9871-7795

ORCID for Neil Ferguson: orcid.org/0000-0001-5955-7477

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