Numerical investigation of nonlinear vibration for rotor-seal system of centrifugal pump

The exciting force in the seal is an important factor for the stability of a multiple stage centrifugal pump. With the speed increasing, the rotor system of multiple stage centrifugal pump presents some nonlinear characters. In order to provide supports for the research of nonlinear characters of multiple stage centrifugal pump, a rotor-seal system model of centrifugal pump is presented and the Muszynska nonlinear seal model is used to express the seal exciting force with multiple parameters in the paper. The fourth-order Runge-Kutta method is also used to determine the vibration response at the impeller place and obtain bifurcation diagram, axis orbit, phase diagram as well as Poincaré Map. The bifurcation results show that the rotor-seal system would be stable under a lower speed and change to be unstable as the rotor speed increases. Various multi-periodic motions and quasi-periodic motions are found showing the complicated motions in the rotor-seal system under nonlinear seal forces.