Vibration mitigation in a spline-shafting system via an auxiliary support: Simulation and experiment

Flexible rotor systems with spline joints often encounter critical resonances and sudden self-excited vibrations. This paper introduces an innovative state-switching scheme utilizing auxiliary support with a pre-loaded snubber ring to suppress these undesirable vibrations. A prototype of an auxiliary support was designed, and a coupled rotor dynamics model incorporating a nonlinear auxiliary support was developed. The study presents several numerical examples and experimental results that validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Adjusting design parameters such as initial clearance and leaf spring stiffness demonstrated significant improvements in limiting shaft amplitude and shifting the resonance frequency to higher ranges. Additional damping from the support further aids in reducing vibrations. The auxiliary support successfully attenuated self-excited vibrations within the supercritical speed range, achieving only short-term oscillations and restricting amplitude within set limits. This novel approach offers a promising solution for suppressing both first-order resonance and self-excited vibrations in flexible rotor systems, thereby enhancing overall system performance and stability.