Re: Oil whirl and Oil whip

From: Laxmi Bhamidipati (laxmi_bhamidipati@yahoo.com)

Remote Name: 66.87.148.96

Comments
I am a new member in this board and my experience is very limited when compared to
the experience of many of the other members. But I want to express my views so that if
I am wrong with any of my concepts I can get cortrected. Oil whirl is characterized by a
rotor that is reasonably stable and oil whip is characterized by an unstable rotor. Oil
whip is a condition where the rotor becomes unstble under the influence of the fluid
film forces (the cross-coupled forces due to the fluid film), when a threshold speed is
reached. This threshold speed in most of the cases is twice the first 'critical speed' and
the rotor starts whirling (forward) in it's first mode shape and the whirl amplitude
increases with time. The threshold speed need not be always twice the first critical
speed for all rotors as mentioned by Mr. Murphy previously (The reason for this was
explained by the work of Dr. Jorgen Lund in his intricately beautiful work). Oil whirl is
a situation that occures when the rotor is lightly loaded, where the rotor whirls (forward)
under the influence of the fluid film forces and the whirl frequency is approximately
0.47 times the running frequency. The whirl frequency tracks the running frequency.
The whitl orbit doesn't increase with time. The practical significance of whirl is, it
serves as a forerunner of a possible oil whip. Plain journal bearings historically have a
charecteristic of causing oil whip due to cross-coupling forces produced by 'continuous
oil film'. Replacing them with tilt-pad bearings is considered as one of the cures, as in
this case the oil film is not continuous and hence lower cross-coupling forces. But the
tilt-pad bearings have lower damping as well and hence the rotordynamic characteristics
of the system should be calculated again. Flexure pivot bearings are a recent
developement, and these resemble tilt-pad bearings, except there is no pivot that may
wear-out with time. Other types of bearing s that are useful in avoiding whip but not as
effective as the tilt-pad bearings are elliptical bearings, multi-lobe bearings etc.

Oil Whirl/Whip
An unstable free vibration whereby a fluid-film bearing has insufficient unit loading.
Under this condition, the shaft centerline dynamic motion is usually circular in the
direction of rotation. Oil whirl occurs at the oil flow velocity within the bearing, usually
40 to 49% of shaft speed. Oil whip occurs when the whirl frequency coincide with (and
becomes locked to) a shaft resonant frequency. Oil whirl and whip can occur in any case
where fluid is between two cylindrical surfaces.