Effect of the inlet oil temperature on vibration characteristics of the high-speed turbocharger rotor system

Abstract

The inlet oil temperature of the rotor system with high-speed and light-load turbocharger will change during operation, which will change the vibration characteristics of the rotor system and even cause vibration accidents. Taking a certain type of high-speed and light-load turbocharger rotor system as the research object, the changes in oil film viscosity, friction power consumption, oil film temperature rise, and ring speed ratio with the inlet oil temperature of floating ring bearings are analyzed. A dynamic finite-element model of the turbocharger rotor–floating-ring-bearing system is constructed, and the finite-element model is verified through the critical speed and colormap spectrogram. The Newmark integral method is used to analyze the nonlinear transient response of the rotor system, and the influence of the inlet oil temperature on the vibration response characteristics of the rotor system is studied. The results show that an increase in the inlet oil temperature leads to a decrease in the internal and external oil film viscosities, frictional power consumption, temperature rise, and an increase in the ring speed ratio. When the inlet oil temperature increases from 50 °C to 130 °C, the amplitude of the inner oil film oscillation will gradually decrease, but the amplitude of the outer oil film vortex will gradually increase, and the journal speed point where the inner oil film oscillation and the outer oil film vortex will appear about 30% in advance. In summary, the rotor vibration is better when the inlet oil temperature is about 90 °C. The conclusion of this paper can provide a theoretical reference for selecting the operating parameters of the rotor system with the least vibration for high-speed light-load turbochargers.