Effect of damping and rotor moment of inertia on stability of self-synchronization for two unbalanced rotors

The self-synchronization of rotors in a nonlinear system has both academic and practical importance because of its applicability as a source of excitation for vibratory machines. Although the characteristics of such self-synchronization can be clarified by analyzing the periodic solutions of the equations of motion, only self-synchronization corresponding to the stable periodic solution is realized in actual systems. The stability of the solution is thus one of the most important characteristics of self-synchronization. In this paper, to stabilize periodic solutions suitable for application to vibratory machines, the effects of the damping of the rigid body and the moment of inertia of the rotors on stability are examined using a system that consists of two unbalanced rotors installed in a rigid body. High-precision analysis conducted using the shooting method shows that it is possible to stabilize the instabilities caused by period-doubling and Hopf bifurcations while keeping other characteristics, such as the synchronous frequency and the rigid body amplitude, mostly unchanged. The findings of this study can serve as a guide to extending the range of stable periodic solutions and are thus expected to be useful in the design of systems that utilize the self-synchronization of rotors.