Modal synthesis method of lateral vibration analysis for rotor-bearing system

Rigid coupling and flexible connection made up of elastic coupling units are widely applied to rotor-bearing system with multi-branched shafting system. This paper proposes a modal synthesis method of lateral vibration analysis for such kind of rotor-bearing system. When the proposed approach is developed, the elastic coupling unit is defined as “flexible substructure” which is treated individually and the other parts are partitioned into some substructures which are analyzed by finite element method. The lower-frequency normal modes of the substructures are retained; whereas the higher-frequency normal modes are neglected by a frequency truncation criterion and the residual flexibility of those omitted modes is considered. The lower-frequency normal modes and residual flexibility are considered to be the assumed modes of Rayleigh–Ritz analysis of whole structure. The approach to the treatment of higher-frequency modes leads to a great reduction in the calculation time and a significant improvement in the efficiency of modal synthesis. Examples show that the proposed approach is very effective for the vibration analysis of rotor-bearing system with multi-branched shafting system and the results derived from this approach are in a good agreement with those from transfer matrix method.