Nonlinear Vibration Analysis of an Elastic Rotor Supported on Angular Contact Ball Bearings Considering Six Degrees of Freedom and Waviness on Balls and Races

Nonlinear vibration analysis of an elastically deformable shaft supported on two lubricated angular contact ball bearings is reported herein considering six-degrees of freedom (6-DOF) and waviness on races and balls. This is an extension work of the investigation published by the authors Babu, C. K., Tandon, N., and Pandey, R. K., 2012, “Vibration Modeling of a Rigid Rotor Supported on the Lubricated Angular Contact Ball Bearings Considering Six Degree of Freedom and Waviness on Balls and Races,” ASME J. Vib. Acoust., 134, p. 011006. Elastic deformation of shaft, frictional moment, and waviness on races and balls have been incorporated in the model for the vibration investigations of rotor's CG. Two noded 3D Timoshenko beam element having 6-DOF has been employed in the computation of the shaft's deformation. Governing equations with appropriate boundary conditions have been solved using 4th order Runge–Kutta method. It is observed that vibration amplitude enhances considerably after incorporating the elastic deformation in comparison to the amplitude achieved using rigid rotor model approach. Moreover, the influence of outer race's radial waviness is large on the amplitudes of vibrations in comparison to radial waviness of inner race. However, it is worth noting here that in case of rigid rotor model the presence of radial waviness on inner race yields high amplitudes of vibrations.