Bifurcation Theory Applied to Oil Whirl in Plain Cylindrical Journal Bearings

An analysis of the self-excited oscillations of a rotor supported in fluid film journal bearings is presented. It is shown that Hopf bifurcation theory may be used to investigate small-amplitude periodic solutions of the nonlinear equations of motion for rotor speeds close to the speed at which the steady-state equilibrium position becomes unstable. A numerical investigation supports the findings of the analytic work.