Modeling the Dynamics of a Gyroscopic Rigid Rotor with Linear and Nonlinear Damping and Nonlinear Stiffness of the Elastic Support

This study analytically and numerically modeled the dynamics of a gyroscopic rigid rotor with linear and nonlinear cubic damping and nonlinear cubic stiffness of an elastic support. It has been shown that (i) joint linear and nonlinear cubic damping significantly suppresses the vibration amplitude (including the maximum) in the resonant velocity region and beyond it, and (ii) joint linear and nonlinear cubic damping more effectively affects the boundaries of the bistability region by its narrowing than linear damping. A methodology is proposed for determining and identifying the coefficients of nonlinear stiffness, linear damping, and nonlinear cubic damping of the support material, where jump-like effects are eliminated. Damping also affects the stability of motion; if linear damping shifts the left boundary of the instability region towards large amplitudes and speeds of rotation of the shaft, then nonlinear cubic damping can completely eliminate it. The varying amplitude (VAM) method is used to determine the nature of the system response, supplemented with the concept of “slow” time, which allows us to investigate and analyze the effect of nonlinear cubic damping and nonlinear rigidity of cubic order on the frequency response at a nonstationary resonant transition