Identification of dynamic coefficients of gas foil bearings by simulated excitation based on coupled fields

The dynamic coefficients (dynamic stiffness coefficient and dynamic damping coefficient) of gas foil bearings (GFBs) are important for transient dynamics calculation and stability analysis of the GFBs-rotor system. Although the perturbation method can be used to calculate the dynamic coefficients, it can only consider a single whirl ratio. Moreover, the whirl ratio is assumed and not practical. Therefore, this paper proposes an identification method of dynamic coefficients of GFBs by simulated excitation. Firstly, based on single journal-single GFB model considering gas-structure interaction by coupled fields, harmonic excitations were applied to the rotor to obtain the shaft orbit. Next, frequency response function method and equivalence coefficient method were used to identify dynamic coefficients. The former method is suitable for the case where response and excitation are same frequency, namely linear problem. The latter method is fit for the situation in which the response has multiple frequency components, namely nonlinear problem. Finally, examples were carried out, and the results from different methods were compared and analyzed. This research work lays a theoretical foundation for the design of the GFBs-rotor system.