Determining experimentally the patterns of the manifestation of the Sommerfeld effect in a ball auto-balancer

Abstract

This paper proposes an experimental method for studying the Sommerfeld effect in auto-balancers or exciters of resonant vibrations of pendulum, ball, or roller type. The method is based on the processing of signals acquired from analog sensors of rotations and vibration acceleration using regression analysis. The method is tested on a specially designed rotor bench on isotropic viscoelastic supports, which executes spatial motion, and an auto-balancer with one ball. Checking the accuracy of the method using stroboscopic lighting demonstrates the accuracy of determining the speed of rotation of the rotor, ball, oscillation frequency of the rotor, etc. with an error of several hundredths of a percent. When fixing the ball relative to the rotor, a classic inertial vibration exciter is obtained. The rotor has two resonant velocities. The Sommerfeld effect is almost not manifested. With a gradual increase in the frequency of the current, the rotor speed increases monotonously. There is no significant slip or jump in the rotor speed. There are two distinct peaks on the amplitude-frequency characteristic. Therefore, such a vibration exciter is not suitable for the excitation of resonant vibrations. With the free placement of the ball in the oil, the behavior of the system changes significantly in the vicinity of the first resonant velocity. The first narrow resonant peak disappears in the roto. Instead, there is a long, gentle resonant rise. It lasts at a current frequency of 9.4 Hz to 19.3 Hz. The amplitude at the reference point on the resonant rise increases from 0.7 mm to 2.84 mm. Therefore, by changing the frequency of the current, it is possible to smoothly change the amplitude of the rotor oscillations by almost 4 times. The maximum amplitude of rotor oscillations is the same as at the first resonance with a fixed ball. Due to the gentleness of the resonant rise, a freely installed ball itself is a reliable exciter of resonant vibrations