Source: Torsional Vibration of Turbomachinery

Chapter

11
Machine Torsional Vibration
Design Rules

Most producers of rotating machinery develop design criteria often based

on operational experience. Design practices and criteria also evolve as
the analytical state-of-the-art advances. Knowledge and procedures in
this area are generally highly proprietary because they differentiate
competitor’s designs and drive product operational performance and
ability to succeed in the marketplace.
It should be noted that design practices that are unduly conservative
will generally escalate product costs and may be counterproductive for
meeting other machine design requirements.
This chapter therefore by intent discusses possible design strategies
only in general terms for achieving torsionally rugged machine designs
and uses the turbine-generator class of machinery as an example.

11.1 Tuning of Torsional Natural

Frequencies
Recognizing that there are significant generator airgap torque fre-
quency components at the first two harmonics of the transmission sys-
tem frequency and low damping of torsional modes of vibration, an
obvious design strategy is to avoid resonance with these harmonics of
system electrical frequency.
Torsional vibration modes in the vicinity of the first harmonic of the
electrical system frequency are generally predictable to better than ±3
percent. Hence a reasonable design guideline would be to separate the
torsional natural frequencies from the system forcing frequency (60
Hz) by approximately 10 percent.

119
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 Machine Torsional Vibration Design Rules

120 Chapter Eleven

For those torsional vibration modes in the vicinity of twice the sys-
tem frequency, for which the turbine blades can be considered to act as
rigid connections to the rotors that support them, the design guideline
for frequency separation needs to be guided by the mode shape.
For mode shapes that show significant relative motion at the gener-
ator rotor (location of applied torque), a frequency separation of the
order of approximately 10 percent may still be a reasonable design
guideline. It should be noted, however, that a vibration model with
more degrees of freedom than for the subsynchronous modes case
described previously would be required to achieve sufficient accuracy
for calculating the torsional natural frequencies.
Conversely, for modes in which the generator is virtually a node
(zero motion), it may be possible to ignore the presence of these modes
altogether because they are obviously very difficult to excite from
torques applied at the generator. An analogy would be the ineffective-
ness of trying to close a door by pushing at the hinge (the node).
In contrast, for those torsional vibration modes in the vicinity of
twice the system frequency, for which some turbine blade stages
vibrate in unison with the rotor torsional motion, it is very important
to avoid resonant conditions to prevent blade vibration failures. For
these complicated rotor–turbine blade system modes of vibration, com-
plex, branched vibration models are required. The damping levels in
these modes are extremely light, so even being off resonance by a frac-
tion of a hertz may result in acceptable blade and shaft vibration
response levels. The key issue, of course, in establishing the design
guideline is the accuracy of the calculation for these complex system
modes. Turbine-generator manufacturers have developed the required
experience in this area through testing programs. It should be noted
that in this frequency range there tend to be families of modes, with
frequencies within a family being very close in natural frequency.
Forced response analyses are generally performed to classify modes of
concern and those that are benign.

11.2 Forced Response Design Guidelines

Several types of incidents that generally apply modest levels of tran-
sient torsional stimulus to the turbine-generator can occur frequently
over the lifetime of a unit. These would include incidents such as sud-
den machine load rejections, planned transmission-line switching inci-
dents, and synchronizing the generator to the electrical network
during start-up. For these incidents it would appear sensible to design
the machine shafting such that there is zero or negligible consumption
of fatigue life. In addition, the design of couplings should be such that
they do not slip under these relatively minor transients. Otherwise,

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 Machine Torsional Vibration Design Rules

Machine Torsional Vibration Design Rules 121

the turbine-generators may need frequent rebalancing operations to

compensate for possible cocking of the couplings following slippage.
At the other end of the spectrum there are a variety of incidents that
can apply very high levels of transient torque to the generator, but for-
tunately these incidents occur very rarely. These incidents include
major faults (three-phase and phase-to-phase) at the terminals of the
machine, malsynchronization accidents, and severe faults in the trans-
mission system close to the plant. For these incidents it is generally
impractical to design the machine to avoid loss of fatigue life in the
turbine-generator shafts. The design strategy in this case may be
based on transient response calculations using simulation of worst-
case faults and lower-bound values of electrical transmission system
reactance and applying design criteria based on the degree of yielding
in the limiting shaft cross sections and/or amount of shaft fatigue life
consumption.

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 Machine Torsional Vibration Design Rules

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