Dynamic analysis of gear-rotor system with viscoelastic supports under residual shaft bow effect

This paper investigates the dynamic behaviors of a gear-rotor system with viscoelastic supports under effects of the gear eccentricity, the transmission error of gear mesh and the residual shaft bow. The investigated dynamic characteristics include system natural frequencies and steady-state response. The finite element method is used to model the system and Lagrangian approach is applied to derive the system equations of motion. The results show that the mass, the stiffness and the loss factor of the viscoelastic support will significantly affect system critical speeds and steady-state response. It needs larger loss factor and more rigid stiffness of the viscoelastic supports to suppress the systematic amplitude of resonance. As the results shown, the magnitude and phase angle of the residual bow have tremendous influence on first critical speed when the geared system mounted on stiff viscoelastic supports. The transmission error of the gear mesh is assumed to be sinusoidal with tooth passing frequency and it will induce multiple low resonant frequencies in the system response. It is observed that the excited critical speed equals to the original critical speed divided by gear tooth number.