A Nonclassical Vibration Analysis of a Multiple Rotating Disk and Spindle Assembly

This paper studies natural frequencies and mode shapes of a spinning disk/spindle assembly consisting of multiple elastic circular plates mounted on a rigid spindle that undergoes infinitesimal rigid-body translation and rotation. Through use of Lagrangian mechanics, linearized equations of motion are derived in terms of Euler angles, rigid-body translation, and elastic vibration modes of each disk. Compared with a single rotating disk whose spindle is fixed in space, the free vibration of multiple disks with rigid-body motion is significantly different in the following ways. First of all, lateral translation of the spindle, rigid-body rotation (or rocking) of the spindle, and one-nodal diameter modes of each disk are coupled together. When all the disks (say N disks) are identical, the coupled disk/spindle vibration splits into N − 1 groups of “balanced modes” and a group of “unbalanced modes.” For each group of the balanced modes, two adjacent disks vibrate entirely out of phase, while other disks undergo no deformation. Because the out-of-phase vibration does not change the angular momentum, the natural frequencies of the balanced modes are identical to those of the one-nodal-diameter modes of each disk. For the group of the unbalanced modes, all disks undergo the same out-of-plane vibration resulting in a change of angular momentum and a steady precession of the spindle. As a result, the frequencies of the unbalanced modes are significantly lower than those of one-nodal-diameter modes of each disk. Secondly, axial translation of the spindle and the axisymmetric modes of each disk are couple together. Similarly, the coupled motion split into N − 1 groups of “balanced modes” and one group of “unbalanced modes,” where the frequencies of the balanced and unbalanced modes are identical to and smaller than those of the axisymmetric modes of each disk, respectively. Thirdly, the rigid-body motion of the spindle does not affect disk vibration modes with two or more nodal diameters. Response of those modes can be determined through the classical vibration analysis of rotating disks. Moreover, vibration response of the disk/spindle assembly from a ground-based observer is derived. Finally, a calibrated experiment is conducted to validate the theoretical predictions.