Nonconservative Stability of a Friction Loaded Disk

Abstract

This paper investigates the vibration of an annular disk that is subjected to rotation and in-plane frictional traction distributed over a sector of the disk’s two faces. Technical applications include noise, vibration, and harshness in automotive and aircraft disk brakes, clutches, transmissions, and other rotating machine components. To the degree that the rotor-to-stator friction in such cases is directed along the disk’s deformable surface, it is treated here as a nonconservative follower-type load. The vibration model incorporates membrane stiffness which derives both from rotation, and from the stresses established as a result of friction. The plane stress state is determined in closed form as a Fourier series, and that solution is compared with the companion, but computationally intensive, results from finite element analysis. For the cases of sector-shaped and full annular loading, the vibration model predicts the critical mode, which is defined as the one that becomes dynamically unstable at the lowest friction level. Vibration modes and propagating waves that fall into opposite symmetry classes are shown to have opposite stability characteristics in the presence of frictional loading.