Experimental Study of Coupled Torsional and Lateral Vibration of Vertical Rotor-to-Stator Contact in an Inviscid Fluid

Abstract

Diagnosis of faults in a rotor system operating in a fluid is a complex task in the field of rotating machinery. In an ideal scenario, a forced shutdown due to rotor-stator contact failure would necessitate the replacement of the rotor or stator. However, factors such as time constraints, economic considerations, and the aging of infrastructure make it imprudent to abruptly shut down machinery that can still be safe to operate. The purpose of this paper is to present an experimental study that validates the theoretical results of the dynamic behavior and friction detection using the wavelet synchrosqueezing transformation (WSST) method for recurrent rotor-stator contacts in a fluid environment, as presented in a previous study. The investigation focused on the analysis of whirl orbits, shaft deflection, and fluctuation frequency during passage through critical speeds. The WSST method was used to decompose the dynamic responses of the rotor in the supercritical speed zone into several supercomponents. The variation of the high-frequency component was studied based on the fluctuation of the instantaneous frequency (IF) technique. Additionally, the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method, in conjunction with the WSST technique, was used to calculate the variation in the amplitude of high-order frequencies in the vibration signal spectrum. The experimental study revealed that the split in resonance caused by rubbing effects is reduced when the rotor and stator interact with an inviscid fluid. However, despite the effects of elasticity and fluid boundaries generating self-excitation at low frequencies and uneven motion due to stator clearance, the experimental results were consistent with the theoretical analysis, demonstrating the effectiveness of the contact detection method based on WSST.