Local defect modelling and nonlinear dynamic analysis for the inter-shaft bearing in a dual-rotor system

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• A force model for the inter-shaft bearing with a local defect on surface of the outer or inner race. • The system may resonant in some non-critical-speed region due to the local defect. • Parameters affecting the resonant frequencies and vibration amplitudes of the abnormal resonances. • A comprehensive parametric analysis is carried out to show the nonlinear resonant response characteristics. This paper presents a force model for the inter-shaft bearing with a local defect on the surface of the outer race or the inner race, and the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of a dual-rotor system affected by the local defect are investigated. A simplified dual-rotor system is presented with the consideration of the inter-shaft bearing's nonlinearities such as the Hertzian contact force and the radial clearance. The local defect is considered as a regular dent with a constant depth, thus the radial clearance will increase when rolling elements go through the range of the local defect. The motion equations of the system with eight degrees of freedom are formulated by using the Lagrange's equation. The nonlinear vibration responses of the dual-rotor system affected by the local defect are obtained using numerical method. The results show that there exist four abnormal resonances on the amplitude frequency curves of the system due to the effect of the local defect, apart from the couple of primary resonances excited by the unbalance excitations of the two rotors. With the aid of the characteristic defect frequency analysis, it is revealed that one pair of the abnormal resonances are excited by the characteristic defect frequency, and the other pair of the abnormal resonances are excited by the combination frequency. Furthermore, a comprehensive parametric analysis is carried out to give an insight into the nonlinear resonant response characteristics affected by parameters such as the depth and the span of the defect, the rotation speed ratio, the unbalances of two rotors, the stiffness and the damping of the linear elastic spring, and the radial clearance, the stiffness and the roller number of the inter-shaft bearing. The results show that the vibration amplitudes for the abnormal resonances are mainly determined by the depth and the span of the defect, while the resonant frequencies for the abnormal resonances are mainly influenced by the rotation speed ratio and the roller number of the inter-shaft bearing. However, the rotors’ unbalances mainly affect the corresponding primary resonance rather than the abnormal resonances. The obtained results will contribute to a better understanding of the nonlinear resonant response characteristics of dual-rotor systems with a local defect on the inter-shaft bearing, which are helpful for the fault diagnostics of the inter-shaft bearing in a dual-rotor system.