Dynamic Behavior of Unbalanced Rigid Shaft Supported on Turbulent Journal Bearings—Theory and Experiment

In this paper, the combined effects of turbulence and fluid film inertia on the dynamic behavior of an unbalanced rigid shaft supported horizontally on two identical aligned short journal bearings are investigated theoretically and experimentally. Utilizing analytical expressions for the dynamic fluid film force components considering the effects of turbulence and fluid film inertia, the nonlinear equations of motion for the rotor-bearing systems are solved by the improved Euler’s forward integration method. The journal center trajectories with unbalance eccentricity ratio of ε_μ = 0, 0.1 and 0.2 are examined theoretically for Reynolds number of Re = 2750, 4580, and 5500, and the theoretical results are compared with experimental results. From the theoretical and experimental results, it was found that the fluid film inertia improves the stability of unbalanced rigid shaft under certain operating conditions.