A THEORETICAL MODEL FOR NONLINEAR ORBITAL MOTIONS OF ROTORS UNDER FLUID CONFINEMENT

In previous papers, Antunes and co-workers developed a theoretical model for nonlinear planar motions—motions X (t) taking place in one single direction—of rotors under fluid confinement using simplified flow equations on the gap-averaged fluctuating quantities. The nonlinear solution obtained was shown to be consistent with a linearized solution for the same problem. Also, it displayed an encouraging qualitative agreement between the nonlinear theory and preliminary experimental results. Following a similar approach, the nonlinear theoretical model is here extended to cope with orbital rotor motions—motions X (t) and Y (t) taking place in two different orthogonal directions—by developing an exact formulation for the two- dimensional dynamic flow forces. Numerical simulations of the nonlinear rotor–flow coupled system are presented and compared with the linearized model. These yield similar results when the eccentricity and the spinning velocity are low. However, if such conditions are not met, the qualitative dynamics stemming from the linearized and nonlinear models may be quite distinct. Preliminary experimental results also indicate that the nonlinear flow model leads to better predictions of the rotor dynamics when the eccentricity is significant, when approaching instability, and for linearly unstable regimes.