Research on modeling and dynamic characteristics of complex coaxial rotor system

Abstract

To make up deficiency of the finite element method in predicting nonlinear dynamic characteristics of coaxial rotor systems, nonlinear dynamic model of a coaxial rotor system was established with a method combining the finite element method and the fixed interface modal synthesis method. Then an implicit time domain method was presented to solve the nonlinear equations of motion thus dynamic characteristics of the rotor system can be obtained. The computational efficiency of this method largely depends on the number of degrees of freedom with nonlinear forces acting on. With nonlinear forces of squeeze film damper and intermediate bearing considered, nonlinear dynamic response characteristics of the coaxial rotor system under multiple unbalance forces were studied in this work. The results showed that the unbalance excitation frequencies are dominant in the responses of the rotor system. Besides, due to coupling effect of the intermediate bearing some combinations of the unbalance excitation frequencies were also observed in the spectrogram. Stability and periodicity of the rotor system was investigated with bifurcation diagram, Poincare map and phase diagram. It was found that the rotor system executes multiple periods orbital motion under relatively low rotational speeds. With the increasing of rotational speed, the rotor system would execute quasi-periodic motion, chaotic motion and periodic motion again. The quasi-periodic motion and chaotic motion are closely related with the SFD. Finally, under relatively low speed, the nonlinear model was validated by comparing the simulation results with the experimental data. The proposed modeling and solving method is expected to provide theoretical and engineering basis for improving prediction of nonlinear dynamic characteristics of complex rotor systems.