Dynamic Response of a Rotor-air Bearing System Due to Base Induced Periodic Motions

Oil-free microturbomachinery (MTM) are inevitably subjected to base or foundation excitations: passenger and commercial transportation vehicles experiencing intermittent excitation from road conditions, and (multiple) periodic load excitations from internal combustion (IC) engines in turbochargers, for example. Too large base excitations can produce severe damage, even failure, due to hard collision or rubbing contact between a rotor and its bearings. Therefore, it is paramount to evaluate the reliability of rotor-air bearing systems to withstanding base load excitations. In 2008, intermittent shock load excitations, up to 30 g (pk-pk), were introduced to a test rig consisting of a small rotor (0.825 kg) supported on two hybrid flexure pivot tilting pad gas bearings (FPTPBs). The experiments demonstrated the reliability of the hybrid gas bearings to withstanding external transient load excitations. Presently, a shaker delivers periodic load excitations to the base plate supporting the rotor-bearing test rig. The whole system, weighing 48 kg, is supported on two soft coil springs and its lowest natural frequency is just ~5 Hz. The rod connecting the shaker to the base plate is not affixed rigidly to the test rig base. The rod merely pushes on the base plate and hence the induced based motions are intermittent with multiple impacts and frequencies. As with most practical conditions, the base motion frequencies (5-12 Hz) are low respective to the operating speed of the rotor-bearing system. Rotor speed coast down tests evidence the rotor-bearing system natural frequency when the gas bearings are supplied with feed pressures increasing from 2.36 to 5.08 bar (ab). The shaker excitations move the rig base plate, which transmits forces into the rotor-bearing system. The recorded rotor response, relative to the bearing housings, contains the main input frequency (5-12 Hz) and its super harmonics; and because of the intermittency of the base motions, it also excites the rotor-bearing system natural frequency. The motion amplitudes at the natural frequency are smaller than the components synchronous with rotor speed. The excitation of the rotor-bearing system natural frequency does not mean the system exhibits rotordynamic instability. iii With base induced motions, the rotor motion amplitude at the system natural frequency increases as the gas bearing feed pressure decreases, as the rotor speed increases, and as the shaker input excitation frequency increases (5-12 Hz). Hence, the test rotor-air bearing system is highly sensitive to base motions, intermittent in character, that excite its natural frequency, in particular when the gas bearings …