Analytical model of curvic coupling and application in nonlinear vibration analysis of a squeeze film damper - rolling bearing - rotor system

The curvic coupling has been extensively employed in the rotor system of aero-engine. Effects of the radical slip of the teeth and damping are usually neglected in the traditional models of the curvic coupling. Additionally, there are only a few researches on the vibration characteristics of the rotor system with curvic coupling, squeeze film damper (SFD) and rolling bearing. In this paper, an analytical model of the curvic coupling is proposed. The nonlinear vibration analysis of a SFD - rolling bearing - rotor system with curvic coupling is furtherly carried out. The Jenkins element is adopted to simulate the dynamic behaviors of the curvic coupling in the model. The hysteresis curves of the analytical model show good agreement with the results of the three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) simulation. After that, the dynamic equation of a SFD - rolling bearing - rotor system with curvic coupling is formulated. Subsequently, detailed parametric analyses, including preload, number of teeth and pressure angle, are conducted to investigate the vibration characteristics of the rotor system. Results show that the curvic coupling mainly produces stiffness loss and damping at the interface of the curvic coupling. The motion stability of the rotor system can be enhanced by increasing the preload, number of teeth at multiple curvic couplings and pressure angle. Moreover, the vibration level of the rotor system initially decreases and then increases as the number of the teeth and pressure angle increase. Finally, the numerical results are validated to be reasonable by an experimental study.