Exploiting gyroscopic effects for resonance elimination of an elastic rotor utilizing only one piezo actuator

A gyroscopic rotor exposed to unbalance and internal damping is controlled with an active piezoelectrical bearing in this paper. The used rotor test-rig is modelled using an FEM approach. The present gyroscopic effects are then used to derive a control strategy which only requires a single piezo actuator, while regular active piezoelectric bearings require two. Using only one actuator generates an excitation which contains an equal amount of forward and backward whirl vibrations. Both parts are differently amplified by the rotor system due to gyroscopic effects, which cause speed-dependent different eigenfrequencies for forward and backward whirl resonances. This facilitates eliminating resonances and stabilize the rotor system with only one actuator but requires two sensors. The control approach is validated with experiments on a rotor test-rig and compared to a control which uses both actuators.