2008 International

ANSYS Conference

Rotor-Structure Interaction Simulation

of Centrifugal Chiller

Pavak Mehta
Trane (Ingersoll Rand)
Dave Looman
ANSYS, Inc.

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Outline

• Trane Centrifugal Chiller

• Background
– Current Rotordynamics design
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Validation
– Rotor Only Model
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Application
– Centrifugal Chiller Model
• Summary

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Trane Centrifugal Chiller

• Water cooled chiller: 100 to 3000 tons capacity

• Power frequency: 50 Hz or 60 Hz
Compressor
supported on shells

Rotor housed
inside compressor

Heat Exchange Shells sitting on the soft pads

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Background

• Current Rotordynamics Design Approach

– Tool: Specialized commercial code
– Model: Rotor supported on bearings held rigidly
– Output: Critical speed and shaft response
– Limitation: Exclusion of structural resonances, Variable
bearing stiffness (impractical)

• New Rotordynamics Design Approach

– Tool: ANSYS v 11 sp1
– Model: Rotor supported on bearings housed in chiller
– Output: Critical speed, shaft and chiller response,
dynamic bearing forces, etc
– Limitation: Structural resonance correlation w/ test

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Schematics of Rotordynamics Model

y
Shaf x Shaf
t z
t
Bearings
Bearings

Impeller Impeller

Motor rotor Motor rotor

Chiller

Current Model New ANSYS Model

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Outline

• Trane Centrifugal Chiller

• Background
– Current Rotordynamics design
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Validation
– Rotor Only Model
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Application
– Centrifugal Chiller Model
• Summary

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Rotor Only FEA model

• Linear brick elements (solid 185)

• Impellers modeled as 3D point mass with rotary
inertia
• Shaft components connected using contact elements
• Rotor-shaft (w/ clearance) connected using
constrained equations
• Stationary reference frame model

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 Rotor Support Bearing Model

• 2D spring/damper with cross-terms

• Stiffness and damping varies with speed
• In house code used to calculate stiffness matrix

Bearing element
COMBI214

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 Rotor Only Campbell Diagram
Constant Bearing Stiffness

ANSYS: Solid line

Operation Speed
In-house: Dotted
Natural Frequency (Hz)

line

1st Bending mode – Forward Whirl

1st Bending mode – Backward Whirl

System rigid body mode

1x - excitation
Critical Speed

Speed (RPM)

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 Rotor Only Campbell Diagram
Variable Bearing Stiffness

ANSYS: Solid line

Operation Speed
In-house: Dotted line
Natural Frequency (Hz)

1st Bending mode – Forward Whirl

1st Bending mode – Backward Whirl

1x - excitation System rigid body mode

Critical Speed

Speed (RPM)
Variable bearing stiffness provides accurate critical speed prediction
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 Rotor Critical Mode Animation

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 Rotor Only
Synchronous Forced Response

ANSYS: Solid line In-house ANSYS (+2.5%)

Displacement Magnitude (mils)

In-house: Dotted line

Vertical Shaft tip magnitude

Operation Speed

Horizontal Shaft tip magnitude

Speed (RPM)
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 Rotor Only Orbit at Critical Speed

Shaft tip orbit at resonance

In-house
Minor axis

Vertical displacement (mils)

ANSYS

Major axis

Horizontal displacement

ANSYS provides confidence in rotor synchronous response prediction

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 13 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Outline

• Trane Centrifugal Chiller

• Background
– Current Rotordynamics design
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Validation
– Rotor Only Model
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Application
– Centrifugal Chiller Model
• Summary

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 14 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Chiller FEA Model

Compressor

• 3D representation of
bearing support
• Mixed, solid-shell
Rotor element model
• Stationary reference
frame analysis
• 1 MDOF model
Shells

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 15 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Rotor Only vs. Chiller
Synchronous Forced Response

Operation Speed Rotor: Solid line

Displacement Magnitude (mils)

Chiller: Dotted line

Vertical Shaft tip magnitude

Horizontal Shaft tip magnitude

Speed (RPM)

High shaft response due to rotor-structural interaction is visible

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 16 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Analysis vs. Test
Comparison of Shaft Response

Analysis: Dotted line

Displacement Magnitude (mils)

Operation Speed
Test: Solid line

Horizontal Shaft tip magnitude

Vertical Shaft tip magnitude

Speed (RPM)
Response shows good qualitative comparison
© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 17 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Prediction of Dynamic Forces

2 2
Operation Speed
Dynamic Bearing Force (lbs)

2 3

1 3

Speed (RPM)
Dynamic forces will help with reliability design of bearings
© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 18 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Prediction of Impeller-housing clearance

Clearance
Displacement (mils)

Shaft displacement

Housing (internal surface) displacement

Speed (RPM)
Dynamic clearance prediction allows fine tuning of flow paths
© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 19 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
 Outline

• Trane Centrifugal Chiller

• Background
– Current Rotordynamics design
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Validation
– Rotor Only Model
• ANSYS Rotordynamics Model Application
– Centrifugal Chiller Model
• Summary

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 20 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Summary

• Prediction of rotor system resonances with varying bearing

property and whirl description is possible
– within 2-5% accuracy of in-house code – Rotor Only
– no classical splitting visible over speed – Chiller
• Prediction of synchronous harmonic forced response with
bearing property as a function of speed
– Results matched well w/ in-house code – Rotor Only
– Magnitude and frequency trend matched with Test – Chiller
• Accurate structural FEA model is essential for rotor-structure
interaction
– For better test and analysis correlation

© 2008 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 21 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary

 Benefits of ANSYS Rotordynamics
on Chiller Design

• Allows 3D structure (chiller) representation for

accurate rotor-structure interaction predictions
• Shaft synchronous and/or asynchronous forced
response and chiller structural response can be
predicted
• Structure and rotor design can be fine tuned in
the early design stage and thus saves product
launch time-to-market and development
resources

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 Questions?

Thank You

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