Optimization Design of an Active Elastic Support/Dry Friction Damper for Aero-engine Rotor Systems

To improve damper’s performance in the vicinity of dual-rotor systems’ multiple critical speeds, an optimization design method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an active elastic support/dry friction damper (ESDFD) is investigated for damping vibration of the dual-rotor system. A dynamic model of the dual-rotor system with ESDFDs is built by the finite element method. Then, the effect of the ESDFD on the dual-rotor dynamic characteristics is analysed. Importantly, through numerical study, relationships between the damping performance of the ESDFD and the rotor’s modes are shown. And the squirrel cage support stiffness is selected as the optimization variable. Based on this, the optimization objective function is constructed by considering the critical speed constraint, sensitivity of unbalance, and controllability of the damper. Finally, the optimization parameters are obtained by the improved particle swarm optimization algorithm. And the simulation results show that the dual-rotor is less sensitive to the unbalance and the damper’s controllability significantly improves. Keywords: elastic support/dry friction damper; vibration control; dual-rotor system; optimization design; improved particle swarm algorithm