Rotor dynamics ― four open questions

Abstract

Despite many years of development in the field of rotor dynamics, many issues still need to be resolved. This is due to the fact that turbomachines, even those with low output power, have a very complex design. The author of this article would like to signal these issues in the form of several questions, to which there are no precise answers. The questions are as follows: How can we build a coherent dynamic model of a turbomachine whose some subsystems have non-linear characteristics? How can we consider the so-called prehistory in our analysis, namely, the relation between future dynamic states and previous ones? Is heuristic modelling the future of rotor dynamics? What phenomena may occur when the stability limit of the system is exceeded? The attempt to find answers to these questions constitutes the subject of this article. There are obviously more similar questions, which encourage researchers from all over the world to further their research.