DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A SPIRAL BEVEL-GEARED ROTOR-BEARING SYSTEM

Spiral bevel gears can transmit motion between two rotors, which are commonly perpendicular to each other. In this paper, the dynamic analysis of a spiral bevel-geared rotor-bearing system is studied. Firstly, the constraint equation describing the relationship between the generalized displacements of spiral bevel gear pairs is derived briefly. Then the modelling of coupled axial–lateral–torsional vibration of the rotor system geared by spiral bevel gears is discussed. Finally, the mechanism of coupled vibration of the spiral bevel-geared rotor system is analyzed theoretically and the dynamic behavior of the system is investigated numerically. The conclusions are characterized as follows. The influences of the critical speeds in rigid journal supports, stability threshold speed and unbalanced responses in hydrodynamic journal bearings are not remarkable in comparison with the spur bevel-geared system under the same conditions. However, the critical speeds and stability threshold speed are essentially affected by boundary conditions such as the torsional stiffness, and meanwhile the effect of the unbalanced responses is not prominent under the concerned rotating speeds except that around the resonance peaks. The steady state response due to torsional excitation is also analyzed, and the results show that it cannot be neglected either in the torsional direction or in the lateral and axial directions in the spiral bevel-geared rotor system.