An Improved Squeeze Film Damper for Rotor Vibration Control: Theoretical Results

This paper proposes an improved squeeze film damper which will prevent the bistable operation associated with conventional squeeze film dampers at large unbalances and/or at small bearing parameters. It consists of a conventional squeeze film damper with a flexibly supported outer ring. This secondary flexible support is considered to be massless, and to have a constant stiffness and damping. The effectiveness of this damper in preventing bistable operation is investigated over a wide range of operating conditions for a rigid rotor supported on a centrally preloaded squeeze film damper. It is shown that depending on relevant parameters such as the stiffness ratio between the secondary support and the retaining spring, the damping coefficient of the support, and the mass ratio between the damper outer ring and the rotor, this proposed damper is very effective in preventing bistable operation even for high unbalance conditions.