Controllable Squeeze Film Damper (An Application of Electro-Rheological Fluid)

Abstract

A notable characteristic of electro-rheological (ER) fluid is the variation of its apparent viscosity with the application of an electric field. The application of this characteristic to the performance of squeeze film damper of a flexible rotor is investigated in this paper. It is shown experimentally that by controlling the supporting damping capacity continuously, rotor vibration can be reduced remarkably a wide range of rotating speed. Moreover, the study indicates experimentally that there exists an optimum supporting damping for every vibration mode.