Experimental investigation of adaptive control applied to HSFD supported rotors

This paper describes the experimental application of adaptive control to Hy brid Squeeze Film Damper (HSFD) supported rotors. The HSFD has been shown t o he an adaptive damper capable of providing infinite damper configurations between short and long damper configurations. Previously: theoretical inve stigations of the adaptive control of HSFD concentrated on the development of the model reference adaptive control (MRAC) method. as well as developme nt of a nonlinear reference model. Simulations of the performance of the ad aptive controller during run-up and coast-down indicated the superior perfo rmance of the adaptive controller III this paper, the adaptive controller i s tested on a multi-mode rotor. A test rig is designed and developed using computer control. A simple reference model is investigated consisting of a second order system. Three forms for adaptation gain are studied. The resul ts of the experimental investigation illustrated the performance capabiliti es of the adaptive controller applied to the HSFD, and moreover indicated t he possibility of simple design for the adaptive controller.