Dynamic Characteristics of a Misaligned Rigid Rotor System with Flexible Supports

Abstract

A misaligned rigid rotor system with flexible supports differing from the traditional flexible rotor system, which refers to its practical rotating center line determined by supports offset from the theoretical one, often suffers support structure damage risk. In the present work, the dynamic characteristics of a misaligned rigid rotor system with flexible squirrel cage supports are focused, and the vibrations and the stress of its support structures under different misaligned offsets are investigated with experimental and simulated analysis. The finite element model for a rigid rotor system with flexible supports in a scaled test rig is established, and its strain energy distribution is analyzed to find that the first two modes of the system are referred to rigid-body modes and the strain energy is mainly distributed on the squirrel cage supports. Based on the analysis results, a rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model is proposed through a data exchange between ADAMS and ANSYS and validated by measurements. The misaligned conditions are focused on, and the influences of misalignment on the vibrations of the rigid rotor system and the reaction force and stress of its support structures are investigated analytically and experimentally. The results from simulation agree very well with the measurements and reveal that the static stress of squirrel cage increases just about proportionally with misalignment levels, but the vibration displacement amplitudes and stress amplitudes show very little change. The more serious the misaligned condition, the higher the static stress of the squirrel cage. Because misalignment will bring out the additional reaction forces in the misaligned direction, it will further result in higher stress and even more serious damage risk for the flexible supports than other parts in the rigid rotor system.