ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF DYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF ROD FASTENED ROTOR-BEARING SYSTEM UNDER PRELOAD SATURATION

This paper investigates the dynamic characteristics of a composite rotor fastened by rods. Contact stiffness and equivalent bending stiffness between discs with different rod preloads of the rotor are obtained respectively by using the elastic and elastic-plastic contact theory. The finite element model of rotor-bearing system is built with Timoshenko beam elements. Critical speeds are respectively calculated with and without the consideration of contact effect, including the changing bearing dynamic coefficients. A test rig of rod fastening rotor-bearing system has been constructed to verify the numerical model results. The results show that the critical speed increases with rod preload and it keeps almost constant when the rod preload reaches a certain value, called preload saturation. The experiments demonstrate that the rod fastening rotor under preload saturation has the similar dynamic characteristics as integral rotor, such as the critical speed and backward whirl with asymmetric support stiffnesses. This kind of rotors which are under preload saturation can be analyzed and designed as an integral one without considering the contact effect. The study gives referential recommendations for analysis and design of a class of composite rotors which contain discs and rods.