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Rotor Dynamic Analysis Using ANSYS: M. Santhosh Kumar
Rotor Dynamic Analysis Using ANSYS: M. Santhosh Kumar
M. Santhosh Kumar
Abstract The computer based codes for rotor dynamics evolved from tabular
method, transfer matrix method and to finite element method. Recent trends in ro-
tor dynamics analysis indicate a shift from beam to solid and shell models, which
enable the classical finite element approach to be used in the design process. The
application of the finite element method is a useful and important tool when the
classic theory is difficult to use or apply.
The ANSYS finite element programs are used extensively in many disciplines
of engineering to solve variety of problems. Over the years, ANSYS mechanical
programs dynamics capabilities have evolved according to the emerging analysis
needs, maturity of analysis methods and increasing computing power. The pro-
grams rotor dynamic analysis technology has developed at a rapid pace to meet
the requirements of Industry. This paper is devoted to discuss the various features
available in ANSYS mechanical program to study the dynamic characteristics of
rotors and their supporting systems.
1 Introduction
Until recently, the industry specific rotor dynamic codes in the common practice are
based on one dimensional model, historically referred to as a Jeffcott or Laval
model, consisting of beam-massspring elements for lateral and torsional vibration
based on transfer matrix method, tabular methods and finite element method. Grad-
ually, the one dimensional rotor models came closer to the practical needs of early
rotordynamicsts; but, not close enough. The distinction between disk and shaft and
coupled behaviors are blurred in the typical applications like aircraft gas turbine.
A more general modeling technique was needed.
M.S. Kumar
Technical Support Division ANSYS India, Bangalore, India
e-mail: Santhoshkumar.M@ansys.com
ANSYS mechanical program allows the mass, spring, beam, shell and the solid
elements to model complex system for analysis of stress, free and forced vibra-
tion. The tendency of a rotor systems angular momentum to couple with rotations
about the rotor axis is called the gyroscopic effect and causes the natural fre-
quency to vary with rotor speed. The rotation effect makes formulation and solution
of the system equation different from classical vibration problems. Though ANSYS
code contains the basic FEA tools to carry out various investigations of rotor dy-
namics from the earlier days, there were no routines grouped specifically for rotor
dynamic evaluations. From ANSYS Version 10, special routines are being devel-
oped for modeling, solving and interpretation of result of rotor systems to address
the specific requirements of rotor dynamic industry. The various modeling solution
and post processing features relevant to rotor dynamics that are available in ANSYS
[1] are briefly summarized in this paper.
2 Theoretical Background
T T
1 uP y m 0 uP y 1 Py Id 0 Py
Emass
Ki
D C wx Ip Pz Py
2 uP z 0 m uP z 2 P z 0 Id P z
(2)
where m is mass, Ip is polar moment of inertia, Id is diametral moment of inertia,
uJ x is spinning velocity about X axis, y and z are angular displacements about
Y and Z axes respectively.
The first two terms contribute to the mass matrix of the element and the last term
gives the gyroscopic matrix. For new generation elements such as SOLID185 and
SHELL181 elements, the expression of the kinetic energy is:
Z
E Gki D !x X Py C Pz dm (3)
vi
Coriolis force in rotating reference frame generates the damping matrix of the ele-
ment as a skew symmetric matrix [1, 3],
Z
Ccor D 2 N T ! N :dv (5)
v
The computation of the gyroscopic matrix for a simple beam and mass elements was
done in ANSYS many years ago. In recent versions of ANSYS, a routine has been
developed to compute gyroscopic/coriolis matrix and add to the damping matrix
for finite elements of different dimensionality as listed in Table 1. Also, the effects
of rotary inertia, shear deformation, axial load, and internal damping have been
included.
Bearings are designed to support and to transfer pure radial loads, pure thrust loads,
or a combination of the two between two parts one rotating relative to the other.
Seals are used to protect bearings from dirt and foreign matters and retain lubricants.
Bearings are not infinitely stiff, the friction and lubricant in them introduce
damping. So, one can visualize rotor system rotating on a set of springs, and of-
ten springs that have stiffness that varies with speed and direction. The same is
applicable for damping. Irrespective of the type of bearing, for rotor dynamic anal-
ysis purpose, all bearings need to be characterized (dynamically) by their stiffness
and damping properties. Bearing coefficients can be determined from experimental
data or from analytical formulae and numerical calculations or special purpose bear-
ing performance programs. Support systems which are not well-described by these
coefficients, such as magnetic bearings, are approximated.
When considering lateral vibrations in (XY) plane only, the axial coordinate
can be disregarded and the position of the shaft centre at the bearing location
Rotor Dynamic Analysis Using ANSYS 157
should be described by lateral displacements and possible rotations only. The linear
constitutive equation for the bearing can be given now by a 4 4 stiffness matrix
and a 4 4 damping matrix.
Cf xx Cf xy uP x Kf xx Kf xy ux Fx
C D (8)
Cf yx Cf yy uP y Kf yx Kf yy uy Fy
In the complex conjugate pair of eigen values .i !i j /, the real part i represents
the stability of the system and the imaginary part !i represents the steady-state
circular frequency of the system.
The ei t represents the time decay, if i is negative, this indicates that the dis-
placement amplitude will decay exponentially which denotes a stable system. On
other hand if i is positive, this indicates unbounded exponential growth in ampli-
tude and leads to an unstable system.
The complex mode enables one to make clear definition of the forward whirl and
the backward whirl. The whirl direction of the modes is calculated from the complex
158 M.S. Kumar
eigenvectors. The real and imaginary parts of the displacement in two perpendicular
directions normal to the axis of the rotor are collected into two vectors for each
node i , 8 9 8 9
< 1;i >
Re
=
< 1;i >
Im
=
fu1;i g D 2;i
Re I fu2;i g D 2;i Im I (11)
: 0 > ;
: 0 > ;
The whirl direction is found from the direction of the cross product.
1
F=4x spin Excitation order
BW stable
FW stable Stability indicator
BW stable
FW stable 2100 Beam model
BW stable
FW stable
BW stable 1680
BW stable
FW stable 1260
840
Whirl direction
Frequency [HZ]
420 Critical speeds Axisymmetric model
0 (x10**2)
0 400 800
200 600 1000
Spin velocity [rpm]
CAMPBELL DIAGRAM
POST26
AMPLITUDE
uxTip
uyTip
uzDisk 1.0E-03
1 nodal dia
1.0E-04 49.36 Hz
Displacement [m]
1.0E-05
1.0E-06
1.0E-07 0 nodal dia
1.0E-08
1.0E-09
1.0E-10
2 nodal dia
1.0E-11
0 100 200 300 400 500
50 150 250 350 450
FREQUENCIES
Cantilevered Disk-Spindle System - Base Excitation 3 nodal dia
4 Harmonic Analysis
a b
0.875e+7N/m
2.63e+7N/m
1.75e+N/m
1.75e+7N/m
3
4 Fz
5
6 z
Fz = m2 = Fz2
0.0508 0.06096
y
Fy
0.03048
F0 = m*r
F, node, fy, F0
Inertia Mass [Kg] Ip[Kg-m2] Id[Kg-m2] Unbalance of 70 gm-mm
R3 10.51 8.590E-02 4.295E-02 F, node, fz, , F0
R4 7.01 4.290E-02 2.145E-02
R5 3.5 2.710E-02 1.355E-02
R6 7.01 6.780E-02 3.390E-02
Fig. 3 (a) Dual spool rotor system. (b) Unbalance force vector
a b
1 1
F=1Xspin CAMPBELL DIAGRAM POST26
BW stable 482 AMPLITUDE
FW stable 1.0E-03
BW stable
FW stable 385.6 AMPL12 1.0E-04
BW stable 1.0E-05
FW stable 289.2
BW stable 1.0E-06
BW stable 192.8
1.0E-07
FW stable
96.4 1.0E-08
Fig. 4 (a) Campbell diagram of inner spool. (b) Frequency response plot
force, a ratio between the frequency of excitation and the frequency of the rotational
velocity of the structure is specified via the SYNCHRO command.
Unbalance forces are represented on a complex plane. Unbalance force is split
into real and imaginary parts. The positive real value and negative imaginary value
of unbalance forces are applied along real and imaginary axes of the unbalance plane
respectively, as shown in Fig. 3b.
Numerical example 3: An unbalance study of two-spool rotor shown in Fig. 3a
supported on symmetric bearings was carried out. The inner spool rotates at up to
14,000 rpm and the outer spool rotates 1.5 times faster. The Campbell diagram and
frequency response function are shown in Fig. 4.
5 Transient Analysis
a b
1 1
POST26 (X10**4)
UY_2 6
2000
UZ_3 5
1800
Unbalance force [N]
Displacement [m]
1600 mew2 0.8 sec ~16.000 rpm ~ 266.67 Hz
3
1400 2
1200 1
1000 0
800
1
600 2
400 3
200 4
0 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 .1 .3 .5 .7 .9
.1 .3 .5 .7 .9 Time [sec]
nonlinear force deflection curve for spring elements, gap conditions, and contact
elements. Alternatively the faster modal superposition transient analysis can be used
to calculate response of the time varying excitations of a rotor spinning at a con-
stant speed.
Numerical example 4: Nelson-Vaugh beam element rotor [2] shown in Fig. 1
was simulated in time-transient domain for an unbalance mass of 10 gm at 70 mm
radius, when the rotor speed is ramped from 0 to 20,000 rpm in 1 sec. The unbal-
ance response of the rotor during speed ramp is shown in Fig. 5b. One can see the
magnification of lateral response near the first critical speed.
The rotor speed at different time points is used to compute imbalance forces for
transient analysis. The time varying unbalance forces are computed as shown in
Fig. 5a using following relations.
This requires ! to be a known function of time. The proper way to apply an imbal-
ance force when the speed is a variable is to define both the X and Y components
of force as a tabular parameter perpendicular to the rotation axis Z.
The orbital response of the rotor stations are plotted by loading the response am-
plitude in two directions of bending and plotting it against each other using/POST26
after the completion of solution. The ANSYS result tracking tool (NLHIST com-
mands) enables monitoring the directional amplitudes and orbit plots online as the
solution progresses as shown in Fig. 6.
6 Conclusion
Nowadays, rotordynamicsts are combining the FEM and solid modeling techniques
to generate simulations that accommodate the coupled behavior of flexible disks,
flexible shafts and flexible support structures into a single multidimensional model.
162 M.S. Kumar
Acknowledgements Reflecting upon the effort summarized in this document, it is clear that it is
the result of contributions from many people from ANSYS Inc. Aline Bely (ANSYS France) and
coworkers are acknowledged with my sincere gratitude.
References
1. ANSYS Release: 12.0 Documentation & Rotor dynamics guide, ANSYS Inc. (2009)
2. Nelson, H.D., McVaugh, J.M.: The dynamics of rotor-bearing system using finite elements.
J. Eng. Ind. 98(2), 593600 (1976)
3. Nelson, F.C.: A brief history of early rotor dynamics. Sound and Vibration 37, 811 (2003)