As a high speed rotating device, a modern turbocharger rotor is commonly supported by floating ring bearings (FRBs), owing to their cost effectiveness for mass production and good damping performance. Thanks to the rapid growth of the power of the modern computer, rotordynamic analysis of turbocharger rotor-bearing systems becomes feasible, and it is closely related to the healthy operation and noise generation of turbochargers. The work in this thesis is concerned with the nonlinear rotordynamic modelling, simulation and analysis in the rotor-FRB system of turbochargers. The conventional linear eigenvalue analysis is shown first in a gradually deepening manner to provide a deeper insight into the results from nonlinear simulations and reported experimental results. It is subsequently found the onset of first two nonlinear jumps can be effectively predicted by the linearized FRB model, although the rotordynamic characteristics at higher rotor speeds can hardly be linearly predicted. The desired oil-film forces for nonlinear simulations are calculated from a newly proposed analytical method, which is extended from the Capone's journal bearing model. Stationary simulations under the perfectly balanced condition show two major subsynchronous components throughout the considered speed range, while the inclusion of in-phase unbalance places a considerable effect on the rotor response at relatively low speed and delays the occurrence of oil-film instability. However, at higher rotor speeds, the lower subsynchronous component can still establish the dominance. The engine induced vibrations are also considered, and it is seen the rotor response over the lower end of the speed range will be considerably affected, whereas, at higher rotor speeds, the engine induced vibrations can be suppressed by the dominant lower subsynchronous vibrations. Through carrying out many run-up and run-down simulations, the FRB outer clearance is found to be a critical parameter of the rotordynamic performance of the investigated TC rotor-FRB system, since distinct frequency maps are obtained with varying FRB outer clearances. The nonlinear effects of unbalance are also investigated, and it is observed the rotor response can be considerably affected by the amount and distribution of the imposed unbalance.

The torque associated with overcoming the losses on a rotating disc is of particular importance to the designers of gas turbine engines. Not only does this represent a reduction in useful work, but it also gives rise to unwanted heating of metal surfaces and the adjacent fluid. This research presents a numerical study on the effect of rotor-mounted bolts on the moment coefficient and flow structure within a rotor–stator cavity under conditions representative of modern gas turbine engine design. Steady-state, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, computational fluid dynamics simulations are obtained using the FLUENT commercial code with a standard (k–ω) turbulence model. The model is firstly validated against experimental data and then used to study the effects of presence of rotormounted hexagonal bolts in the rotor-stator cavity under investigation using different dimensionless flow parameters. Also investigated were the effects of changing the number and size of rotor-mounted bolts on the flow structure and amount of losses for two test cases; one corresponding a throughflow dominated condition and the other corresponding a rotationally dominated one. The simulation results showed that decreasing the throughflow rate reduces the area of the wake region causing the wakes to become more circumferential in their path around the bolts. Also it was found that increasing the number and diameter of bolts respectively reduces and increases the area of the wake region. For N>18 a separation bubble forms above the bolt which its length increases with increasing the number of bolts. The total moment coefficient of all bolts in the system increases with increasing the number of bolts. However, the rate of this increase reduces by mounting more bolts. While increasing the diameter of the bolts consistently increases the moment and drag coefficients for the rotationally dominated condition, for the throughflow dominated case an increase and a reduction was observed for respectively the moment and drag coefficients.