A HYBRID METHOD FOR THE VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF ROTOR BEARING SYSTEMS

The transfer matrix method together with a digital computer form the foundation of the dynamic analysis of rotor-bearing systems. The properties of each segment of the rotating shaft are expressed in simple matrix form and the overall dynamic behaviour is then obtained by successive multiplication of the element matrices. The main drawback associated with this method is the numerical instability in calculating natural frequencies for complex systems. The finite element method, on the other hand, uses the element stiffness and mass matrices to form the global equation of motion for the complete system. This avoids the numerical problems of the transfer matrix method at the expense of the computer memory requirements. The new method described in this paper combines the transfer matrix and finite element techniques to form a powerful algorithm for vibration analysis of rotor-bearing systems. It is shown that the accuracy improves significantly when the transfer matrix for each shaft segment is obtained from finite element techniques. The accuracy and efficiency of the hybrid method are compared with the transfer matrix method for a simply supported uniform rotating shaft where an analytical solution for the critical speeds and mode shapes is available. The method is then applied to a flexibly supported uniform shaft and a non-uniform shaft with a large disc to show the capability of the method for finding the critical speeds of complex rotor-bearing systems.