Coupled lateral and torsional vibration characteristics of a speed increasing geared rotor-bearing system

The goal of this study was to examine the coupled vibration characteristics of a turbo-chiller rotor-bearing system having a bull-pinion speed increasing gear, using a coupled lateral and torsional vibration finite element model of a gear pair, and to provide the mechanism of the characteristic changes. The investigations were systematically carried out by comparing the uncoupled and coupled natural frequencies and their mode shapes with varying gear mesh stiffness, taking into account rotating speeds, and by comparing the strain energies of the lateral and torsional vibration modes. The results show that some modes may yield coupled lateral and torsional mode characteristics when the gear mesh stiffness increases over a certain value and, in addition, that their associated dominant modes may be different from their initial modes, i.e., a given dominant mode may change from an initial torsional one to a lateral one or vice versa.