Analysis of motion stability of the flexible rotor-bearing system with two unbalanced disks

The complicated dynamical behavior of a flexible rotor-bearing system is studied in this paper. The unsteady oil-film force model described by three functions is considered. The bifurcation and chaos behaviors were revealed by calculating the maximum Lyapunov exponent of the system. Two new phenomena were found in this system: first, the chaos with two attracting areas which cannot be distinguished from the stable period doubling motion on Poincare section; second, for the flexible rotor system with two unbalanced disks, the response varies in a large extent when the phase angle between the eccentricities of disks is different. The experiments were also carried out. Comparison between experimental and calculated results shows that the significant use of the max Lyapunov exponent in revealing the bifurcation and chaos characteristics of the rotor-bearing system. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.