Intelligent Rotor Bearing System Design Tool

To address the current separation between bearing analysis and rotor response calculations, a combined computational tool will be developed to couple the rotor-bearing system more directly. This tool will enable the complete thermo-mechanical analysis of rotating machinery structures by combining an advanced representation of rotor geometry with embedded calculations of both rolling element and fluid film bearing dynamic performance that makes no apriori assumptions regarding load distribution. The response calculations will be incorporated into a fully integrated, platform independent, graphical user interface that features a complete set of pre- and post-processing displays along with an expert system to guide model definition and result interpretation. Phase I work established the analysis requirements, defined methodology, tested prototype software, and created a software design specification. The prototype demonstrations convincingly showed that the integration of previously disconnected bearing mechanics into rotor dynamics is very feasible. In Phase II, full development of the tool will be accomplished, using the design specification, with an emphasis to get an operational version available to beta testers half way through the program.