Politecnico di Milano

M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

Rotordynamics 1:
bending critical speeds and rotor balancing

Mechanical System Dynamics

Prof. Roberto Corradi
Technical issues in rotordynamics

 bending vibration and bending critical speeds

 rotor balancing
 dynamic instability in fluid-lubricated journal bearings
 etc.

2
Preliminary considerations

Rotating machines are normally designed to be balanced, but some residual

unbalance may result from small imperfections in the manufacturing process,
misalignment of supports, etc.
Any unbalanced rotor generates centrifugal forces, when the rotor itself is rotating
at a certain angular speed .
For fixed , these forces are constant in the rotating reference system (i.e. they
rotate together with the rotor), while they result in harmonic functions of time if
projected on an absolute (fixed) reference system. Since the circular frequency of
these harmonic functions is equal to the rotor’s angular speed, unbalance forces
are referred to as synchronous forces.

Fi ( )  m  2  ( )

3
Preliminary considerations

If the rotor’s shaft is flexible, the rotor will possess bending natural frequencies.
Therefore, a resonance condition may occur any time the angular speed  of the
rotor equals one of the rotor’s bending natural frequencies.
These particular values of  are called bending critical speeds.
Unbalance forces are dangerous in that they result in dynamic loads on the
bearings, possible fatigue damages, vibration and noise. All these problems
become particularly serious in correspondence with the bending critical speeds.
For this reason, proper balancing procedures need to be applied so as to minimize
the rotor’s unbalance.
The problem with these techniques is that in real cases the actual unbalance of the
rotor is unknown. Therefore, balancing techniques need to rely on experimental
procedures which are based on the idea of measuring some effect of the unbalance
and to process the collected data so as to identify the value and position of the
balancing masses.

4
Simplified analysis of the bending vibration phenomenon

The Jeffcott rotor (2 dof model) 

Rigid disc mounted in the middle of a massless flexible
shaft on rigid supports (damping and gravitational
forces are neglected).
Dynamic equilibrium equations in the x-y plane: m
 mxG  kx  0

myG  ky  0 z  x jy G
xG  x   cos t xG  x   2 cos t 

yG  y   sin t yG  y   2 sin t S
mx  kx  m  cos t
 2

 z

 my  ky  m 2
 sin t
Due to the polar symmetry of the shaft’s cross- O
section, the two equations of motion are decoupled
k
and the same natural frequency  is obtained from both equations:  5
m
Simplified analysis of the bending vibration phenomenon

The two scalar equations in the previous slide are equivalent to the following
vector equation: 10
damped
8
mz  kz  m2 e jt undamped

|z0/|
6
4
it
By imposing z  z0 e the system’s 2

response for variable  can be obtained: 0

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

z0 m 2 (  ) 2 0

 
 k  m 1  (  ) 2
2 -50

deg
-100

-150
=  bending critical speed -200
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

/

6
Simplified analysis of the bending vibration phenomenon

Point S describes a circumference with radius |z0| which is centred in the origin O of
the x-y plane (i.e. the intersection of the plane with the undeformed axis of the shaft).
Point S moves along this circumference with an angular speed  which is the same
as the angular speed of the disc (synchronous whirl).
< |z0| is small and the two vectors z and  are aligned
 (critical speed) |z0| is large and vectors z and  are orthogonal
> vectors z and  are parallel, with opposite directions; when >> they
tend to have the same magnitude and the c.o.m. G moves towards O,
thus reducing the eccentricity and the consequent unbalance force
7
(self-balancing)
Balancing of rigid and flexible rotors

Balancing consists in mounting on the rotor additional masses (with proper value
and position), so as to minimize the overall rotor’s unbalance.
Balancing techniques are based on the idea of measuring some effect of the
unbalance (vibration or loads transmitted to the bearings) and to process the
collected data so as to identify the value and position of the balancing masses.
When dealing with real rotating machines, balancing masses are installed at more
than one section along the rotor (balancing planes) and vibration/force
measurements are taken at more than one section (measurement sections).
The number of balancing planes and measurement sections depends on whether
the rotor can be assumed to be rigid or flexible. While in the previous case the
rotating speed  is small compared to the rotor’s first bending natural frequency 1,
in the latter one a significant contribution of the rotor’s flexible vibration modes is to
be expected.
We already know that for a rigid rotor to be balanced the c.o.m. G needs to belong
to the axis of rotation and the same axis needs to be a principal axis (i.e. the
resultant force and the resultant moment of the inertia forces associated with the
rotor’s unbalance are both zero). In the case of a flexible rotor, this condition
8
is no more sufficient to avoid bending vibration.
Measurement procedures

This measurement procedure applies to both

vibration and force measurements

t  2
 T
T 2 
t T 9
Balancing of rigid rotors

resultant force and resultant moment

of the inertia forces associated with equivalent system of forces
the rotor’s unbalance

 Fi  F1  F2

 M i  l1  F1  l2  F2
10
Balancing of rigid rotors based on force measurements

d2
d1


 R1  R2  Fi  0

 d1  R1  d 2  R2  M i  0


11
Balancing of rigid rotors based on vibration measurements

Influence coefficients:

V1(u m1 )  V1(u ) V2(u m1 )  V2(u )

11   21 
m1 m1
V1(u m2 )  V1(u ) V2(u m2 )  V2(u )
12   22 
m2 m2

 V1(u )  11m1*  12m2*  0

 (u )
 2
V   m*
21 1   22 2  0
m*

*
 2 equations in the 2 complex unknowns m1 , m2*
12
Balancing of flexible rotors

In the case of flexible rotors, we need to make sure that the generalized unbalance
forces be zero for all the vibration modes which may undergo resonance excitation,
including those corresponding to a non-rigid motion of the rotor. Therefore, more
than two balancing planes are normally required (nb>2). Moreover, the number of
measurement sections is usually greater than two (nm>2), since vibration is
normally measured at each bearing. The balancing of flexible rotors can be
performed according to the method of the influence coefficients.
u m j
Vi  Vi u
 ij  i  1, 2, nm j  1, 2 nb
mj
V    m*  0
u
Balancing condition:

 11 12 1nb  V1u   m1* 

     
   
     u

 V  u m*   * 
 ij Vi   mj 
 
 nm 1  nmnb  Vnu  mn* 
 m  b 13
Balancing of flexible rotors

In flexible rotors, the influence of unbalance changes with the rotation speed, since
at different speeds different vibration modes can be excited. Therefore, different
values of both the influence coefficient matrix and of the vector of measured
vibrations need to be considered (for the ns speeds of interest), while the vector of
the balancing masses shall be the same at any speed.
V u          m*  0
 1  1 
  complex-valued system (usually overdetermined)
 ...
 u
   
of nm x ns equations in nb unknowns
V ns   ns  m*  0
 V u       1   
 1
  
 V    
u
   2   
V s   s  m*  0  s   
u u
Vs  2
 
   
 
 u
V  
ns 

    
 
ns  

V s   s  m*  
u

 s   s  m*    s 
T T u
Vs
Least-squares minimization of the residual 
 
1 14
(i.e.    min) yields: m*    s   s   s 
T T T u
Vs