Numerical investigation of rotor-bearing systems with fractional derivative material damping models

The increasing demand for high-speed rotor-bearing systems results in the application of complex materials, which allow for a better control of the vibrational characteristics. This paper presents a model of a rotor including viscoelastic materials and valid up to high spin speeds. Regarding the destabilization of rotor-bearing systems, two main effects have to be investigated, which are strongly related to the associated internal and external damping of the rotor. For this reason, the internal material damping is modeled using fractional time derivatives, which can represent a large class of viscoelastic materials over a wide frequency range. In this paper, the Numerical Assembly Technique (NAT) is extended for the rotating viscoelastic Timoshenko beam with fractional derivative damping. An efficient and accurate simulation of the proposed rotor-bearing model is achieved. Several numerical examples are presented and the influence of internal damping on the rotor-bearing system is investigated and compared to classical damping models.