Finite Element Modelling of Composite Rotor-Shaft-System

Abstract

The objective while manufacturing various machinery or automobile parts is usually to make components of high strength and durability along with less weight or density. Generally composite materials are preferred as compared to single material for high performance. Composite consists of two or more material having same or different physical and chemical properties. One of the materials serves as matrix holding together the other material embedded in it which provides the reinforcement in the form of fibres. Glass epoxy materials are generally used for its sustainability under heavy electrical and mechanical stresses under high temperature operating conditions. In this project, various type of rotor-shaft system with bearings is used having unbalance in rotor to study and compare better performance between composite and single material under transient analysis. The material property was set to orthotropic and isotropic for composite and single material respectively. E-Glass/Epoxy and steel are used as composite and single material respectively for the analysis. The study uses ANSYS-13 software for developing finite element model of the rotor-shaft system. The element type for shaft, disk rotor and bearing were defined as beam188, mass21 and combin14 respectively. The shafts were defined as solid and hollow by calculating the mass moment of inertia and polar moment of inertia accordingly. Based on these models, analyses were carried out to obtain a more stable rotor-shaft system. Graphs for bending stress vs. time and displacement vs. time were studied for each case.