Stability and vibration characteristics of a rotor-gas foil bearings system with high-static-low-dynamic-stiffness supports

Supporting gas bearings with proper flexible supports can improve the stability performance of a rotor-bearings system. Many researchers had successfully applied O-rings to stabilize the high-speed rotor mounted on the rigid surface gas bearings. However, no systematic investigation on dynamic characteristics of gas foil bearing with flexible supports is available so far. Furthermore, how the support properties affect the unbalance and shock vibration characteristics has not been fully investigated yet. There may well be this case that a trade-off between stability, unbalance and shock vibration reduction performances exists. So this research aims to synthetically study the effects of support stiffness and damping on dynamic characteristics of the rotor-gas foil bearing system, i.e., stability, unbalance and shock vibration characteristics. In addition, high-static-low-dynamic stiffness (HSLDS) type springs are used as flexible supports to improve the dynamic performances of the system. Parameter studies of support stiffness and damping on dynamic performances provide guidance for the design of HSLDS. Simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness of the application of well-designed HSLDS.