Investigating the Sommerfeld effect in the rotating shaft with internal and external damping using the Timoshenko beam theory

The Sommerfeld effect is a destructive phenomenon in rotating systems with a non-ideal electrical source, which causes instability in the system by applying a dynamic jump around critical speeds. In this article, the Sommerfeld effect has been investigated for the first time using the Timoshenko beam theory for an eccentric continuous shaft with internal and external damping. After deriving the governing equations and finding displacement functions using the semi-analytical method, the Sommerfeld effect near the critical speeds is detected using the instantaneous power balance method. As confirmation of the correctness of the derived relations, it has been shown that for thin shafts, there is a good consistency between the results obtained from the Euler–Bernoulli and Timoshenko theories in the early modes. However, it was observed that at higher critical speeds, the jump amplitude decreases, and the unstable speed range increases significantly, so the probability of entering the vicinity of the instability range in the next mode is not unexpected. Since no effect has been ignored in this study, the dynamic analysis of the Sommerfeld jump in thick shafts is also possible. Despite the common belief that Timoshenko beam theory is only considered suitable for studying thick shafts, it has been shown that the effects of shear deformation are significant in high-speed systems, even for non-thick shafts, and regardless of them in higher modes, it causes a calculation error in determining the point of occurrence of the Sommerfeld phenomenon.