European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

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European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejmsol

Parametric instability of a rotor-bearing system with two breathing transverse

cracks
Qinkai Han, Fulei Chu*
Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 3 June 2011
Accepted 15 March 2012
Available online 30 March 2012

When the rotor rotates at a constant speed, the transverse crack opens and closes alternatively, due to
gravity, and thus a breathing effect occurs. This variance in shaft stiffness is time-periodic, and hence
a parametrically excited system is expected. The parametric excitation from the time-varying stiffness
causes instability and severe vibration under certain operating conditions. Current research mostly
focused on the rotor with single transverse crack. There are few studies on the multi-cracked rotor
system. In fact, the interaction between the multiple parametric excitations with various phasing and
amplitude, which are induced by the multiple breathing transverse cracks, would make the instability
behavior of the system differ distinctly from that of the single cracked rotor system. Moreover, how the
instability regions change with various crack breathing mechanisms should also be investigated. Thus,
the parametric instability of a rotor-bearing system with two breathing transverse cracks is studied in the
paper. First, the nite element equations of motion are established for the cracked rotor system. Two
types of crack breathing mechanisms, of which one is more accurate (new) and the other is empirical
(old), are adopted in the nite element formulation. Then, a generalized Bolotins method is introduced
for determining the boundaries of the primary and secondary instability regions. Based upon these,
instability analysis for a practical used rotor-bearing system with single and two cracks are conducted,
respectively. The instability regions induced by the single transverse crack with new and old breathing
mechanisms are compared with each other. For the two-cracked rotor system, the variations of the
unstable boundaries with crack depths, orientation angles and positions are observed and discussed in
detail. It is shown from the results that the dynamic instability of the two-cracked rotor-bearing system
indeed have some unique features that differ from that of the single cracked rotor system.
2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Parametric instability
Rotor-bearing system
Two transverse cracks
Various crack breathing mechanisms

1. Introduction
The effect of the presence of the transverse crack on the
dynamics of the rotor has been a focus of attention for many
researchers. If undetected early, such cracks can pose a potential
source of catastrophic failures. Many researchers have therefore
conducted extensive investigations on the dynamics of cracked
rotor over the last four decades. Early research progress could be
found in (Wauer, 1990; Gasch, 1993; Dimarogonas, 1996). More
recently, in depth literature reviews on the dynamical modeling
and analysis of cracked rotors were published by Papadopoulos
(2008) and Bachschmid et al. (2010), respectively.
When the rotor rotates at a constant speed, the transverse crack
opens and closes alternatively, due to gravity, and thus a breathing
effect occurs. This variance in shaft stiffness is time-periodic.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hanqinkai@hotmail.com (Q. Han), chu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
(F. Chu).
0997-7538/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.euromechsol.2012.03.003

Hence, the dynamic behavior of the rotor with breathing transverse cracks could be modeled by a coupled set of second-order
linear differential equations with periodic coefcients. This type of
system is often referred to as the parametrically excited system. The
parametric excitation from the time-varying stiffness causes instability and severe vibration under certain operating conditions. Thus,
many attentions have been paid to study the determination of
operating conditions of parametric instability in cracked rotor
dynamic analysis. To name a few, Meng and Gasch (2000) investigated the stability and the stability degree of a cracked Jeffcott rotor
supported on different kinds of journal bearings. Gasch (2008)
presented an overview stability diagram of a Laval rotor having
a transverse crack. Fu et al. (2002), Dai and Chen (2007) and Chen
et al. (2007), respectively, carried out nonlinear dynamic stability
analysis of a rotating shaft-disk system with a transverse crack. In
their model, the mass of elastic shaft, the additional displacements
caused by the crack, the geometric nonlinearity of the shaft and
asymmetrical viscoelastic supports were taken into account based

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

181

upon the energy theorem and Lagrange equation. The above analysis
focused on the study of simple systems with few degrees of freedom
to gain a qualitative insight into the instability phenomena.
With the successful utilization of nite element models in the area
of rotor dynamics, the parametric instability analysis were also
extended to nite element cracked rotor-bearing systems (Sekhar
and Dey, 2000; Sinou, 2007; Ricci and Pennacchi, 2009). Sekhar
and Dey (2000) studied the variation of the rst stability threshold
limit with crack parameters and shaft internal damping. Sinou (2007)
conducted the stability analysis by applying a perturbation to the
nonlinear periodic solution, and analyzed the effect of crack on the
rst three instability regions. Ricci and Pennacchi (2009) evaluated
the stability of a steam turbo generator rotor for different values of
rotating speed and crack depth. In these studies, the adopted
breathing model of the transverse crack was either switching (Gasch,
1976) or harmonic (Mayes and Davies,1984), which have been proved
to be approximate and rough in modeling the crack breathing
behavior. More recently, the actual breathing mechanism was presented and new breathing functions of the breathing crack were
introduced by Al-Shudeifat and Butcher (2011). It is shown that the
new breathing functions are considerably more accurate than the
previously used functions. Thus, after considering the accurate crack
breathing mechanism, how the parametric instability changes would
be one of the purposes of the paper.
As the literature shows, extensive efforts have been devoted to
the rotor with a single transverse surface crack. When more than
one crack appears in a rotor, the dynamic characteristics of the
system have not gained sufcient attentions. Tsai and Wang (1997)
and Sekhar (1999), respectively, employed the transfer matrix
method and nite element method to analyze the natural
frequencies and corresponding mode shapes of a continuous multicracked rotor system. The effects of both relative distance along axis
and/or orientations of cracks were considered. Wu et al. (2005)

investigated the coupled lateral-torsional vibration of a rotor with

two transverse cracks. For a stationary shaft with two cracks, the
coupled bending vibrations on the horizontal and vertical planes
were discussed by Chasalevris and Papadopulos (2008). Sekhar
(2008) gave a comprehensive summary on the identication
methods for the multi-cracked beam and rotor systems. However,
in the above analysis, the multiple cracks are all assumed to be open
and the breathing behavior is not taken into account. Only Darpe
et al. (2003) studied the effect of two breathing cracks on the
unbalance response of a simple Jeffcott rotor, and the parametric
instability was not addressed in their study. Actually, due to the
multiple breathing transverse cracks, there are multiple parametric
stiffness excitations in the rotor system. As the orientation, position
and depth of various cracks are different, so the multiple parametric excitations might have various amplitudes, phases and

Fig. 1. Rotor having two transverse surface cracks (a) and the crack orientation in the
circumference (b).

Fig. 2. Schematic diagrams of the cracked element cross-section: (a) before rotation
and (b) after the shaft rotates. The dashed area represents the crack segment of crack 1.

182

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

space locations. This would bring great inuence on the parametric

instability of the rotor system.
Thus, the parametric instability of a rotor-bearing system with
multiple (two) transverse cracks is studied in the paper. First, the
nite element equations of motion are established for the cracked
rotor system. The new breathing functions, presented by AlShudeifat and Butcher (2011), are used in formulating the timevarying nite element stiffness matrices of the cracked elements.
In order for comparison, the widely used harmonic breathing
function, named the old breathing mechanism, are also given in the
paper. Then, a generalized Bolotins method (Turhan, 1998) is
introduced for determining the boundaries of the primary and
secondary instability regions. Based upon these, instability
computations for a practical used rotor-bearing system with single
and two cracks are conducted, respectively. The unstable regions
induced by the single transverse crack with new and old breathing
mechanisms are compared with each other. For the two-cracked
rotor system, the variations of the unstable boundaries with crack
depths, orientations and positions are observed and discussed in
detail. Finally, some useful conclusions are given.
2. Mathematical modeling of rotor-disk-bearing system with
two transverse cracks
2.1. Two transverse cracks with new breathing mechanism

IX s IXA1 s IXA2 s
IY s IYA1 s IYA2 s

(1)

A1
A2
where IXY
s and IXY
s are the area moments of inertia of the
areas A1 and A2 s about the xed X and Y axes. Hence, the area

k1ce

12I X
6 0
6
6
6 0
6
E6
6lIX
36
l 6
6 12I X
6 0
6
6 0
4
6lIX

0
12IY
6lI Y
0
0
12I Y
6lI Y
0

0
6lI Y
4l2 IY
0
0
6lIY
2l2 IY
0

6lI X
0
0
4l2 I X
6lI X
0
0
2l2 I X

12I X
0
0
6lI X
12IX
0
0
6lI X

0
12I Y
6lI Y
0
0
12I Y
6lI Y
0

I X s IX s  Yce s2 Ace s

I Y s IY s  Xce s2 Ace s

0
6lI Y
2l2 I Y
0
0
6lI Y
4l2 I Y
0

(2)

where Xce s and Yce s are the centroid coordinates of Ace s relative to the xed X and Y axes. Al-Shudeifat and Butcher (2011)
studied the actual breathing mechanism of the transverse surface
crack, and presented accurate expressions for both I X s and I Y s.
Here, their results are adopted as

IX s I  I  I 1 f1 s

(3)

IY s I I  I 1 f1 s  2I  I1  I 2 f2 s

(4)

in which I is the area moment of inertia when the crack is fully

closed, I 1 I  Ixc  A1 e2 and I 2 I  Iyc are the time-invariant
area moments of inertia of A1 about the centroid X and Y axes at
s 0, where Ixc and Iyc are the area moments of inertia of the crack
segment about the xed X and Y axes, and e is the centroid location
on the xed Y-axis. According to the geometry of the cracked crosssection, the Ixc , Iyc , A1 and e could be, respectively, expressed utilizing
the non-dimensional crack depth m1 h1 =R and shaft radius R as

Ixc

Consider a rotor having two transverse surface cracks, as shown

in Fig. 1. The two cracks with various depths h1, h2 are assumed to be
some distance apart axially. Besides, crack 1 oriented from crack 2
at an angle of b in the circumference.
Without loss of generality, the edge of crack 1 is assumed at zero
angle with the xed X-axis at t 0 as shown in Fig. 2(a). The
constant rotational speed of the rotor is denoted by U. A dimensionless time-variable is introduced as s Ut. As the shaft starts to
rotate, the crack angle with the negative Y-axis is changed by time
to s as shown in Fig. 2(b). In the following, the time-periodic stiffness element matrix induced by crack 1 is introduced rst. The
stiffness element matrix of crack 2 could also be obtained by taking
into account the crack orientation angle b.
In order to get the stiffness matrix of the cracked rotor element,
the area moments of the overall cross-sectional area Ace s of the
cracked element about the centroid X and Y should be determined
rst. The Ace s includes two parts: the left uncracked area A1 at
s 0 and the area of the closed portion of the crack A2 s, which
is time-variable and starts to appear as the crack starts to close.
Thus, the area moments of inertia of Ace s about the xed X and Y
axes are calculated as

moments of inertia of Ace s about the centroid X and Y axes that

stay parallel to the xed X and Y axes during rotation are given as

pR4 R4 
8




1  m1 2m21  4m1 1 g sin1 1  m1




R4 
1  m1 2m21  4m1  3 g 3 sin1 g
12


A1 R2 p  cos1 1  m1 1  m1 g
Iyc

2R3 3
g
3A1

(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)

p
where g m1 2  m1 . The breathing functions f1 s and f2 s in
Eqs. (3) and (4) are given as (Al-Shudeifat and Butcher, 2011)

f1 s coss=2=m
f2 s

(9)

q1 q2

2
q2  q1
!
s
X
cosiq2  cosiq1
s
cosi


i2
i1

(10)

in which m is a positive even number,

p

q1 tan1 e R1  m1 =R m1 2  m1

is the angle at which the crack start to close, and the upper end of
the crack edge reaches the compression stress eld. When the shaft
rotates at q2 p=2 cos1 1  m1 , the crack becomes fully
closed. According to the results in Ref. (Al-Shudeifat and Butcher,
2011), the positive numbers should be m 8 and s 4 to meet

3
6lI X
0 7
7
7
0 7
7
2l2 I X 7
7
6lIX 7
7
0 7
7
0 7
5
4l2 I X

(11)

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

the precision requirements. Hence, the nite element stiffness

matrix of the cracked element of the cracked rotor system is written
as
By substituting Eqs. (3) and (4) into Eq. (11), one can rewrite the
crack element matrix as

183

gyroscopic matrices of the uncracked rotor could be found in

Ref. (Lalanne and Ferraris, 1998). The matrices M, C, G, K, K1 s and
K2 s are each of dimension 4(N 1)  4(N 1).

2.3. Previous model for breathing mechanism of transverse cracks

k1ce k k11 f1 s k12 f2 s

(12)

where k is the stiffness matrix of cracked element for fully closed

state which is equivalent to the uncracked element stiffness matrix.
The matrices k11 and k12 of crack 1 are the secondary stiffness
matrices that appear due to the breathing crack. They are found via
Eqs. (3), (4) and (11) as

12
6 0
6
6 0
6
EI11 6
6l
1
k1 3 6
12
l 6
6
6 0
6
4 0
6l

0
12
6l
0
0
12
6l
0

0
6l
4l2
0
0
6l
2l2
0

6l
0
0
4l2
6l
0
0
2l2

12
0
0
6l
12
0
0
6l

0
12
6l
0
0
12
6l
0

0
6l
2l2
0
0
6l
4l2
0

3
6l
0 7
7
0 7
7
2l2 7
7
6l 7
7
0 7
7
0 5
4l2
(13)

0
60
6
60
6
EI22 6
0
1
k2 3 6
l 6
60
60
6
40
0

0
12
6l
0
0
12
6l
0

0
6l
4l2
0
0
6l
2l2
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
12
6l
0
0
12
6l
0

3
0
07
7
07
7
07
7
07
7
07
7
05
0

0
6l
2l2
0
0
6l
4l2
0

(14)

in which I11 I  I 1 and I22 2I  I 1  I 2 . For crack 2, the

element stiffness matrix could be gained similarly with that of
crack 1 by taking into account the crack orientation angle b as

k2ce k k21 f1 s b k22 f2 s b

k21

(15)

k22

where
and
are the secondary element stiffness matrices of
crack 2, which are computed by substituting m2 h2 =R for m1 in
Eqs. (13) and (14).
2.2. FEM model of the rotor-disk-bearing system
The uncracked rotor element matrices are derived based upon
the EulereBernoulli beam theory. Without considering the unbalance and gravity forces, the FEM equations of motion of the cracked
rotor-disk-bearing system with two breathing surface cracks are
written in matrix form as

_ s K K1 s K2 s qs 0
U2 Mqs UC UGq

(16)

where qs qT1 /qTi /qTN1  is the 4(N 1)  1 dimension nodal

displacement vector, qTi ui yi fyi fxi  is the single node displacement vector consisting of translational and rotational displacements
about the X and Yaxes for i 1, 2,/, N 1, M is the global mass matrix,
K is the global stiffness matrix of the uncracked system,
K1 s K11 f1 s K12 f2 s and K2 s K21 f1 s b K22 f2 s b
represent the time-periodic stiffness matrices induced by the two
12
12
cracks, in which K1 and K2 are the secondary stiffness matrices of
zero entries except for the element of crack 1 or 2 where the entries
12
12
1 2
1 2
in K2 , UG and C are the
equal to k1 in K1 and equal to k2
global gyroscopic and damping matrices. Only the bearing (external)
damping is considered, and the internal damping is beyond the
concept of the paper. The single element mass, stiffness and

The breathing mechanism of transverse crack has been paid

sufcient attentions in the past. The harmonic form of the
breathing crack function proposed in Ref. (Mayes and Davies, 1984)
to describe the breathing mechanism of the crack in a cracked rotor
system has been widely accepted and used in the literature. Here,
the harmonic breathing mechanism is also introduced for parametric instability comparisons with the new breathing mechanism.
The old breathing function is given by

1
1 cos s
2

f s

(17)

The plus sign of the cosine term in this function is used when
the crack is fully open and symmetric with the negative Y-axis at
s 0. The function can be used in Eqs. (3) and (4) by assuming
f1 s f2 s f s which yields

I X s I  I  I 1 f s

(18)

I Y s I  I  I 2 f s

(19)

Eqs. (18) and (19) are exactly the same as the equations derived
for the area moments of inertia for the cracked element of a similar
cracked rotor system with a breathing crack in Ref. (Al-Shudeifat
et al., 2010). Hence, using the old breathing function in the literature given in Eq. (17) for approximating the breathing mechanism
of a cracked rotor is also considered in the analysis in order for the
comparison with the results obtained by using the accurate
breathing functions.

3. Parametric instability analysis

The stability of the solutions of Eq. (16) will be studied via the
Generalized Bolotin Method described in Ref. (Turhan, 1998). This
method is based on the Floquet theory and gives the stability
boundaries on a two-dimensional parameter space. Thus, evoke
rst the Floquet theory according to which a solution of Eq. (16) can
be written as a product of an exponential part and a 2p periodic
part. Representing the periodic part by its complex Fourier series
expansion, this solution can be written as

qs ers

N
X

qk ejks

(20)

k N

p
where j 1, r represents the Floquet (or characteristic) exponent and qk are the complex Fourier coefcients vectors. By representing K1 s and K2 s by their complex Fourier series
expansions up to the n th harmonic and substituting Eq. (20) into
Eq. (16), one can have
N h
X

U2 r jk2 M U2 r jkG Ur jkC K qk erjks

k N

n
X

N
X

p n k N

K1p K2p qk erjkps 0

21

in which K1p and K2p are 4(N 1)  4(N 1) complex Fourier

coefcients matrices related to K1 s and K2 s, respectively.
Harmonic balance of Eq. (21) requires the following innite set of
algebraic equations to be satised

184

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

Table 1
Physical parameters of rotor-bearing-disk system used in Ref. (Al-Shudeifat et al.,
2010).

U2 r jk2 M U2 r jkG Ur jkC K qk

n
X
p n

K1p K2p qr 0 k /; 2; 1; 0; 1; 2; / r k  p 22

This set may be recast, with Us0 into the form

r2 D0 r E0 E1 F0 F1 2 F2
U
U
U


y 0

(23)

where y /qT2 ; qT1 ; qT0 ; qT1 ; qT2 /T is an innite column vector,
and D0, Ei, Fi are innite dimensional partitioned matrices made up
of 4(N 1)  4(N 1) sub-matrices given by

Description

Value

Description

Value

Length of the rotor

Radius of the rotor
Density of rotor
Modulus of elasticity
Bearing stiffness

0.724 m
0.01588 m
7800 kg/m3
2.1  1011/m2
7  107 N/m

Disk outer radius

Disk inner radius
Density of disk
Mass of the disk

0.0762 m
0.01588 m
2700 kg/m3
0.571 kg

Thus, the values of U corresponding to the instability boundaries

could be gained by solving the polynomial eigenvalue problems. If
the boundaries of U1i (primary instability region) are of interest, the
innite matrices in Eq. (27) are represented as

k;r
k;r
d
d
d
Dk;r
0 M kr ; E0 2jkM G kr ; E1 C kr ;

k;r
k;r
1
2
2
d
d
d
Fk;r
0 k M jkG kr ; F1 jkC kr ; F2 K kr Kp Kp

(24)
in which dkr is the Kronecher delta and the superscripts k and the
superscripts k and r refer to the hyper-row and column indices. In
order for Eq. (16) to admit a non-trivial solution of form Eq. (20), the
determinant of the coefcientss matrix of Eq. (23) must vanish

2
(25)

This equation can be used to calculate the U values corresponding to stability boundaries on a parameter space, which has U
as one of its components, provided that the value of the Floquet
exponent r on those boundaries is known. The starting points of
simple instability regions (denoted by Uni ) at the rotating speed axis
could be written as (Nayfeh and Mook, 1979)

2
n

Uin ui

(26)

in which ui is the ith whirling frequency of equivalent timeinvariant rotor system. When the system is at the boundaries of
U1i ; U3i ; U5i ; / (called the sub-harmonic parametric resonance
boundaries), the value of one of the characteristic exponents would
be j/2. For the boundaries of U2i ; U4i ; U6i ; / (called the harmonic
parametric resonance boundaries), a certain characteristic exponent takes the zero value. Putting r j/2 or r 0 into Eq. (25), one
could have the sub-harmonic and harmonic parametric resonance
boundaries respectively

det






j
1
1
j
1
F 1 E1 2 F 2 0
F0 E0  D0
U
2
4
2
U



1
1
det F0 F1 2 F2 0


0
;
M

E0


E1

C
0


0
;
C

(29)

F0 4
2

M  jG
0
0

0
0
0

3
0
5;
0
M jG

K K1 K2
6 1 0 2 0
F2 4 K1 K1
K12 K22

K11 K21
K K10 K20
K11 K21

jC
F1 4 0
0

3
0 0
0 0 5;
0 jC
3

K12 K22
7
K11 K21 5
1
2
K K0 K0

(30)

4. Computation and discussions


n 1; 2; 3; /

M
0

For the secondary instability region U2i , the innite matrices in

Eq. (28) are written as

The same nite element model in Ref. (Al-Shudeifat et al., 2010)

is used here as shown in Fig. 3. The undamped rotor-bearing-disk
system is divided into 18 elements. The left and right disks have
the same geometrical dimensions. The values of the physical
parameters are given in Table 1.
In the following, the instability boundaries obtained by the
generalized Bolotins method are veried with numerical results.
1000
900

2
2

800

(27)

(28)

Whirling frequencies i (rad/s)


 


1
1
1
0
det r2 D0 r E0 E1 F0 F1 2 F2


2jM G 0
;
0
G




M  jG 0
jC 0
; F1
;
F0
0
0
0
0
#
"
K11 K21
K K10 K20
F2
K11 K21 K K10 K20
D0

700
1

600

500
400

300

200

2
i

=/2
i

100
0

Fig. 3. Finite element model of rotor-disk-bearing system.

500

1000
(rad/s)

1500

Fig. 4. Whirling frequencies of the undamped rotor-bearing-disk system.

2000

1
0.8
U2

U1

0.6

0.4

0
1360

1471 (2)

0.2

1411 (1)
1380

Bolotins method
DSTM method

1400

1420

1440
(rad/s)

1460

1480

1500

1520

1
0.8
1

U2

U2

0.6
0.4
713 (1)

0
690

728 (2)

0.2

Bolotins method
DSTM method
700

710

720
(rad/s)

730

740

750

Fig. 5. Comparisons between instability regions obtained by the generalized Bolotins method and DSTM method: (a) Primary instability regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary
instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

1
0.8

0.6

U1

0.4
0.2
0
1340

U2
1

New breathing mechanism

Old breathing mechanism
1360

1380

1400

1420

1440

1460

1480

1500

(rad/s)

1
0.8
0.6

U1
2

U2

0.4
0.2
0
680

New breathing mechanism

Old breathing mechanism
690

700

710
(rad/s)

720

730

740

Fig. 6. Four instability regions of the cracked rotor system with new and old breathing mechanisms: (a) Primary instability regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions
(U21 and U22 ).

186

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

1
0.8
U2

U1

0.6
0.4

crack in elment 6
crack in elment 9
crack in elment 12
crack in elment 15

0.2
0
1360

1380

1400

1420

1440
(rad/s)

1460

1480

1500

1520

1
0.8

U2

U1

0.6
0.4
0.2

crack in elment 6
crack in elment 9
crack in elment 12
crack in elment 15

0
690

700

710

720

730

740

750

(rad/s)
Fig. 7. Four instability regions of the cracked rotor system with various crack locations: (a) Primary instability regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

1
0.8

U2

U1

0.6
0.4

c =0
b
cb=1e4
cb=3e4

0.2
0
1380

1400

1420

1440

1460

1480

1500

(rad/s)
1
cb=0
cb=1e4
cb=3e4

0.8
U1

0.6

U2

0.4
0.2
0
695

700

705

710

715
720
(rad/s)

725

730

735

740

Fig. 8. Effect of bearing damping upon the four instability regions of the cracked rotor system for the crack in element 6: (a) Primary instability regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary
instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

The rest contents are divided into two parts: one crack and two
cracks. In the rst part (one crack), comparisons between the
instability regions of the cracked rotor system with new and old
breathing functions are conducted to show how the instability
changes after considering the new breathing mechanism. Moreover, the effects of crack location (in various rotor elements) and
bearing damping on the instability regions is also discussed. For the
second part (two cracks), the variations of the instability regions
with crack orientation angle and location are investigated in detail.
4.1. Validation
For the undamped rotor system without crack, the rst pair of
whirling frequencies u1 (backward) and u2 (forward) varying with
the rotating speed are shown in Fig. 4. In the paper, the primary and
secondary instability regions, related to the u1 and u2, are considered and denoted by U1i and U2i (i 1, 2), respectively. From Eq. (26),
one can see that the starting points of these instability regions at the
rotating speed axis are just the intersections between the whirling
frequency lines and the lines of ui U=2 and ui U, which is
shown in Fig. 4. The values are determined as: U11 1411 rad/s,
U21 1471 rad/s, U12 713 rad/s and U22 728 rad/s.
When the crack 1 is considered and locates at element 6, the
boundaries of the primary and secondary instability regions on the
U  m1 plane are computed using the generalized Bolotins method,
as shown in Fig. 5. In order for validation, the discrete state transition matrix (DSTM) method is utilized to determine the instability
regions point by point. The key issue of this method is how to
obtain the DSTM of the parametric system. Here, a numerical
methodology presented by Friedmann et al. (1977) is used to estimate the DSTM. The computational results are also plotted in Fig. 5.

187

It is shown that the two aspects of results are in good agreement.

Moreover, the computed starting points of various instability
regions (as marked in the gure) are just the ones obtained through
the whirling analysis of the uncracked rotor system. Thus, the
instability boundaries obtained by the generalized Bolotins
method in the paper are correct and believable.
4.2. Rotor system with one crack
Here, the undamped rotor-bearing-disk system with crack 1 is
considered, and the cracked element is set to be 6. The primary and
secondary instability regions with new and old crack breathing
mechanisms are computed and plotted in Fig. 6, respectively. When
the crack depth m1 is zero (without parametric excitation), the four
instability regions with new breathing mechanism have the same
starting points with the ones with old breathing mechanism. As the
m1 is increasing, the difference becomes more and more obvious.
Basically, the four instability regions with old breathing mechanism
all lean to the left (low rotating speed range), compared with the
ones with new breathing mechanism. Thus, the estimated instability rotating speeds would be relative lower if the old crack
breathing mechanism is adopted.
Actually, the crack would appear in arbitrary locations of the
rotor. For the crack in element 6, 9, 12 and 15, the primary and
secondary instability regions are plotted in Fig. 7, respectively. With
the crack location varying from element 6 to 15, the ranges of most
instability regions (except U22 ) are rst increasing and then
reducing. As the crack is in element 9, the instability ranges have
relative greater values. This is because: for the rst pair of whirling
frequencies, the maximum modal deformations appear at the
midpoint of the rotor system (just element 9 and 10). With the

1
=0
=/2
=3*/4
=

0.8
U1

0.6

U1

0.4
0.2

1380

1400

1420

1440

1460

1480

1500

1520

(rad/s)

1
0.8

=0
=/4
=/2
=

U2

U2
2

0.6
0.4
0.2

695

700

705

710

715

720
(rad/s)

725

730

735

740

745

Fig. 9. Effect of crack orientation angle upon the four instability regions of the cracked rotor system for the crack 1 in element 6 and crack 2 in element 13: (a) Primary instability
regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

1
=0
=/2
=3*/4
=

0.8
1

U1

U2
1

0.6
0.4
0.2

1380

1400

1420

1440

1460

1480

1500

1520

(rad/s)

1
0.8

=0
=/4
=/2
=

U1
2

U2
2

0.6
0.4
0.2

695

700

705

710

715

720
(rad/s)

725

730

735

740

745

Fig. 10. Effect of crack orientation angle upon the four instability regions of the cracked rotor system for the crack 1 in element 8 and crack 2 in element 13: (a) Primary instability
regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

1
=0
=/2
=3*/4
=

0.8
U1
1

U2
1

0.6
0.4
0.2

1380

1400

1420

1440

1460

1480

1500

(rad/s)
1
=0
=/4
=/2
=

0.8
1

U2

U2
2

0.6
0.4
0.2

700

705

710

715

720

725

730

735

740

(rad/s)
Fig. 11. Effect of crack orientation angle upon the four instability regions of the cracked rotor system for the crack 1 in element 4 and crack 2 in element 13: (a) Primary instability
regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

same crack depth, the stiffness parametric excitation induced by

the crack would have greater impact on the dynamic behavior of
the rotor system. Thus, the instability regions would hold the
widest speed range for the crack in element 9.
The bearing damping is ignored in the above discussions. The
damping coefcients of the bearing in two transverse directions are
set be equal and denoted by cb. Two values of cb (10,000 and
30,000 N s/m) are considered in the analysis. The instability
boundaries of the rotor system for the crack in element 6 are
plotted in Fig. 8. The results without bearing damping (cb 0) are
also given in the gure for comparisons. From Fig. 8, one can nd
that the instability regions are all attenuated by the damping,
especially for the shallow surface crack. It is indicated that the
parametric instability induced by small surface crack is not obvious
in actual practice. Moreover, the secondary instability regions U21
and U22 seem more sensitive to the damping. The U22 has disappeared even for low bearing damping value (cb 10,000 N s/m),
as shown in Fig. 8(b).
4.3. Rotor system with two cracks
When the two cracks appear in the rotor simultaneously, the
relative position and orientation angle might have great impact
upon the parametric instability of the system. The crack 2 with
m2 0.4 is xed in element 13, while the crack 1 would appear in
element 6, 8, 4 and 2. The corresponding instability regions are
plotted in Figs. 9e12, respectively. The typical values of crack
orientation angle are chosen as: b 0, (p/4), (p/2), (3p/4), p.
Due to the existence of crack 2, one can see from Fig. 9 that the
U11 , U12 , U21 and U22 are regions rather than points as the m1 0. Under
different orientation angles, increasing m1 would bring different
inuences to the various instability regions. When b 0, the

189

primary instability regions U11 and U12 are widened continually with
the m1 increasing, as shown in Fig. 9(a). Although the U11 and U12 are
still broadening for b p/2, the increasing extent is evidently lower
than that of the b 0. Continuing to increase b 3p/4, the scopes of
U11 and U12 are rst slightly reduced and then increased with the m1.
The reduction phenomenon becomes obvious by setting b to be p.
The ranges of U11 and U12 are reduced rapidly until m1 is increased to
0.4 (equals to the value of m2 ). In this case, the U11 and U12 are just
points (called the zero unstable points, ZUPs). Continuing to
increase the m1, the U11 and U12 reappear and become wider gradually. From Fig. 9(b), one can nd that the ZUPs of the secondary
instability regions U21 and U22 arise when the b equals to p/2. When
b p, the ranges of U21 and U22 are increased continuously with m1,
which overlap with the case of b 0. This might be explained as:
the system has 2T-periodic solution in the primary instability
regions, while in the secondary instability regions the solution is
T-periodic (Nayfeh and Mook, 1979). Thus, the variation of the
primary instability regions with b is 2p-periodic, and the ZUPs
would appear when b p. For the secondary instability regions, the
cycle is p and the ZUPs could be found as b p/2.
From Figs. 10 and 11, one can nd similar phenomena for the
instability regions varying with b. However, the values of m1 corresponding to the ZUPs are different, indicating that the relative
position of the two cracks also has impact on the parametric
instability of the rotor system. The value of m1 is lower than 0.4 for
crack 1 in element 8. If the cracked element is 4, the value of m1 is
greater than 0.4 (about 0.6), even greater than 1 for U12 in Fig. 11(a).
As the crack 2 is in element 13, so the symmetrical element about
the rotor midspan is element 6. Thus, for the crack 1 in element 6,
the m1 m2 due to the geometrical symmetry, as shown in Fig. 9.
When the crack 1 is more close to crack 2 (in element 8, Fig. 10),
increasing the m1 to achieve the ZUPs is relative easy and m1 < m2.

1
=0
=/2
=3*/4
=

0.8
U1
1

U2
1

0.6
0.4
0.2

1400

1410

1420

1430

1440
1450
(rad/s)

1460

1470

1480

1490

1
=0
=/4
=/2
=

0.8
U1
2

U2
2

0.6
0.4
0.2

705

710

715

720
(rad/s)

725

730

735

Fig. 12. Effect of crack orientation angle upon the four instability regions of the cracked rotor system for the crack 1 in element 2 and crack 2 in element 13: (a) Primary instability
regions (U11 and U12 ); (b) Secondary instability regions (U21 and U22 ).

190

Q. Han, F. Chu / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 36 (2012) 180e190

If the position of crack 1 shifts to the left (i.e. in element 4, Fig. 11),
then it is relative hard to approach the ZUPs and m1 > m2 because
the crack 1 is far from the crack 2. Continuing to shift the crack 1 to
the left, (i.e. element 2 in Fig. 12), one can see that there is no ZUPs
for the m1 in the range 0e1 and the variation of b has lower inuence on the unstable regions.
5. Conclusions
The parametric instability of a rotor-bearing system with two
transverse cracks is studied utilizing the generalized Bolotins
method. Some conclusions are summarized as follows:
1 Considering the new crack breathing mechanism presented by AlShudeifat and Butcher (2011), the obtained instability regions
differ distinctly from that of the old (harmonic) breathing mechanism. Basically, the estimated instability rotating speeds would
be relative lower if the old crack breathing mechanism is adopted.
2 Most instability regions would hold wider speed range for the
crack in (or near) the midspan of the rotor system. With the
crack approaching the bearing points, the instability regions
are reduced gradually.
3 The instability regions are all attenuated by the bearing
damping, especially for the shallow surface crack.
4 When the crack orientation angle is around p, the existence of
one crack would attenuate the primary instability regions
induced by the other crack. For the secondary instability regions,
similar attenuation occurs for the orientation angle around p/2.
5 The relative position of the two cracks on the rotor also has
signicant effect on the parametric instability. When the two
cracks are symmetrical about the rotor midspan, the two crack
depth values are the same for the system at ZUPs. If one crack
moves towards (or away from) the other crack, the required
crack depth values for the ZUPs are lower (or greater) than the
other crack depth values.
Acknowledgments
The research work described in the paper was supported by the
National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 10732060
and 51075224, and the State Key Laboratory of Tribology under
Grant No. SKLT2010C04. The rst author would also express sincere
thanks for the support from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 20100480012).
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