Disk Position Nonlinearity Effects on the Chaotic Behavior of Rotating Flexible Shaft-Disk Systems

This study investigates the effects of disk position nonlinearities on the nonlinear dynamic behavior of a rotating flexible shaft-disk system. Displacement of the disk on the shaft causes certain nonlinear terms which appears in the equations of motion, which can in turn affect the dynamic behavior of the system. The system is modeled as a continuous shaft with a rigid disk in different locations. Also, the disk gyroscopic moment is considered. The partial differential equations of motion are extracted under the Rayleigh beam theory. The assumed modes method is used to discretize partial differential equations and the resulting equations are solved via numerical methods. The analytical methods used in this work are inclusive of time series, phase plane portrait, power spectrum, Poincaré map, bifurcation diagrams, and Lyapunov exponents. The effect of disk nonlinearities is studied for some disk positions. The results confirm that when the disk is located at mid-span of the shaft, only the regular motion (period one) is observed. However, periodic, sub-harmonic, quasi-periodic, and chaotic states can be observed for situations in which the disk is located at places other than the middle of the shaft. The results show nonlinear effects are negligible in some cases.