Development of Experimental Active Magnetic Bearing Device for Measurement of Mechanical Seal Reaction Force Acting on Rotor

Author(s):  
Hiroki Manabe ◽  
Shota Yabui ◽  
Hideyuki Inoue ◽  
Tsuyoshi Inoue

In turbomachinery, seals are used to prevent fluid leakage. At seal part, rotordynamic fluid force (RD fluid force), which causes whirling motion of rotor, is generated. Under certain conditions, the RD fluid force may contribute to instability of the machine. There are several cases that the whirling is accompanied by eccentricity due to the influence of gravity, or the whirling orbit becomes elliptical due to the influence of the bearing support anisotropy. In these cases, mathematical modeling of the RD fluid forces becomes increasingly complex. As a result, the RD fluid force measurement is more preferable. To improve the measurement and evaluation technology of the RD fluid force, a method to arbitrarily control whirling of the orbit is required. In this paper, RD fluid force measurement by controlling the shape of the orbit using an active magnetic bearing (AMB) is proposed. A contact type mechanical seal is used as a test specimen. When the rotating shaft is whirling, the RD fluid force due to hydrodynamics lubrication and the frictional force due to contact occur on the sliding surface. The resultant force of these forces is taken as the reaction force of mechanical seal and the measurement is performed. The measured reaction force of the mechanical seal is compared with simulation results and the validity of the proposed measurement method is confirmed.

Author(s):  
Masaharu Uchiumi ◽  
Naoki Nagao ◽  
Yoshiki Yoshida ◽  
Masato Eguchi

In the design of rocket turbopump with high energy density, rotordynamics considerations are very important to stabilize the motion of the shaft. Rotordynamic instabilities generated by rotordynamic fluid forces are often reported. It is recognized that the forces affect the whirling motion of the rotor, and induce the self-excited vibration. To understand the effect of the rotordynamic fluid forces of the impellers on rotor vibration, a tangential fluid force in a forward whirling direction and a normal fluid force in a radial direction were measured by using the experimental apparatus with an active magnetic bearing. As the experimental result for a closed impeller and an open impeller, it was clarified their fluid forces are quite different in the characteristics of destabilizing/damping effects and restoring/inertia effects.


Author(s):  
Jerzy T. Sawicki ◽  
Dmitry L. Storozhev ◽  
John D. Lekki

This paper addresses self-diagnostic properties of AMB (active magnetic bearing) supported rotors for on-line detection of the transverse crack on a rotating shaft. In addition to pure levitation, the rotor supporting bearing also serves as an actuator that transforms current signals additionally injected into the control loop into the superimposed specially selected excitation forces into the suspended rotor. These additional excitations induce combination frequencies in the rotor response, providing unique signatures for the presence of crack. The background of theoretical modeling, experimental and computer simulation results for the AMB supported cracked rotor with self-diagnostic excitation forces are presented and discussed.


2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (5) ◽  
pp. 786-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiki Yoshida ◽  
Yoshinobu Tsujimoto ◽  
Goh Morimoto ◽  
Hiroki Nishida ◽  
Shigeki Morii

This paper reports an experimental investigation of the rotordynamic fluid force and moment on a centrifugal impeller with three types of wear-ring seals; i.e., a face seal and two types of toothed seals. The impeller is equipped with a vaneless diffuser. Rotordynamic fluid forces and moments on the impeller in whirling motion were measured directly by using four-axis force sensor. Unsteady pressures were measured at several locations in the diffuser. It was found that, (1) at low flow rate, the fluid force and fluid force moment become maximum at a certain whirling speed caused by a coupling between the whirl motion and vaneless diffuser rotating stall and (2) the seal geometry with axial seal affects the direction of the coupled fluid force relative to the direction of eccentricity through the change in the unsteady leakage flow due to the whirl.


2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shota Yabui ◽  
Hideyuki Inoue ◽  
Tsuyoshi Inoue

Abstract This study introduces a track-following controller design to measure the rotor dynamics (RD) coefficient of the annular seal using active magnetic bearings. The annular seal is implemented contiguously to prevent leakage of fluid between the rotating shaft and stationary area of a rotating machine. The force caused by the seal at the contact point can cause vibrations, which should be identified for designing rotating machinery. The RD force is coupled with mechanical and fluid dynamics. Moreover, the dynamics depend on the operating conditions of the rotating machine, namely, the rotating speed and orbit of the rotating shaft. This study proposes a control system for the active magnetic bearing to measure the RD force directly at the arbitrary operating condition. The main controller is designed to satisfy a criterion of the frequency characteristics of the rotating system. In addition, the control system employs adaptive feed-forward cancellation (AFC). This can estimate and compensate for the RD force in the control system simultaneously. The experimental results indicate that the control system can achieve an arbitrary operating condition and measure the RD coefficient of the annular seal in real-time. As a result, the RD coefficient is identified based on the equation of motion.


Author(s):  
Shota Yabui ◽  
Tsuyoshi Inoue

In this study, a measurement system is developed to analyze periodic external forces acting on a rotating machinery. The dynamics of a rotating machineries are influenced by various periodic external forces such as unbalanced forces, oil film forces at a journal bearing, and seal contact forces. The characteristics of periodic external forces are dependent on the rotating conditions, rotational speed, and rotating orbit of the rotating shaft. The proposed system employs an active magnetic bearing (AMB), which is implemented using an adaptive feed-forward cancellation (AFC). The use of AFC ensures that the proposed system can realize the desired harmonic orbit assuming actual operations under the periodic external forces. Moreover, AFC can measure the periodic external forces in real-time using an adaptive algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified experimentally. Experimental results show that the control system can control the rotating shaft to an accuracy of micrometer order using the implemented AFC. The measurement error of the periodic external forces acting on the rotating system is less than 2%.


Author(s):  
Jerzy T. Sawicki ◽  
Dmitry L. Storozhev ◽  
John D. Lekki

This paper addresses self-diagnostic properties of active magnetic bearing (AMB) supported rotors for online detection of the transverse crack on a rotating shaft. In addition to pure levitation, the rotor supporting bearing also serves as an actuator that transforms current signals additionally injected into the control loop into the superimposed specially selected excitation forces into the suspended rotor. These additional excitations induce combination frequencies in the rotor response, providing unique signatures for the presence of crack. The background of theoretical modeling, experimental, and computer simulation results for the AMB supported cracked rotor with self-diagnostic excitation forces are presented and discussed.


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