Oil-film instability simulation in an overhung rotor system with flexible coupling misalignment

Aiming at the oil-film instability of the sliding bearings at high speeds, this paper systematically investigates oil-film instability laws of an overhung rotor system with parallel and angular misalignments in the run-up and run-down processes. A finite element (FE) model of the overhung rotor system considering the gyroscopic effect is established, and the sliding bearings are simulated by a nonlinear oil-film force model based on the assumption of short-length bearings. Moreover, the effectiveness of the FE model is also verified by comparing our simulation results with the experimental results in the published literature. In the run-up and run-down processes with constant angular acceleration, the effects of parallel misalignment (PM) and angular misalignment (AM) on oil-film instability laws are simulated. The results show that under the perfectly aligned condition, the onsets of the first and second vibration mode instability in the run-down process are less than those in the run-up process due to the hysteresis effect. Under the misalignment conditions, the misalignment of the coupling can delay the onset of the first vibration mode instability and decrease its vibration amplitude. In comparison with the PM, the amplitudes of multiple frequency components are more obvious under the given AM conditions. Moreover, in the run-up and run-down processes with different misalignment conditions, the variation of the dominant vibration energy was observed according to the rotating frequency \(f_{\mathrm{r}}\), the first-mode whirl/whip frequency \(f_{\mathrm{n}1}\), the second-mode whirl/whip frequency \(f_{\mathrm{n}2}\), or the their combinations, such as \(f_{\mathrm{r}}\)–\(2f_{\mathrm{n}2}\).