Study on Rotor-Bearing System Vibration of Downhole Turbine Generator under Drill-String Excitation

Abstract

Downhole turbine generators (DHTG) installed within drill-string are susceptible to internal and external excitation during the drilling process, causing significant dynamic loads on bearings, and thereby reducing the bearing’s service life. In this study, a finite element model of an unbalanced rotor-bearing system (RBS) of DHTG with multi-frequency excitations, based on the Lagrangian motion differential equation, is established. The responses of the RBS under different drill-string excitations in terms of time-domain response, whirl orbit, and spectrum are analyzed. For a constant rotor speed, lateral harmonic translational and lateral oscillation both transform the whirl orbit to quasi-periodic, while axial rotation only changes the response amplitude. Changing the duration of pulse excitation leads to different response forms. Then, the dynamic characteristics of the RBS supported by a squeeze film damper (SFD) are investigated. The results indicate that SFD effectively reduces the displacement response amplitude and bearing force near the critical speed. As the axial rotation angular velocity of the drill-string increases, the first critical speed and displacement response decrease, while the variation of lateral oscillation frequency and amplitude has limited impact on them. The established model provides a means for analyzing the dynamic characteristics of DHTG’s RBS under drill-string excitations during the design stage.