Aerodynamically Excited Vibration Of A Rotating Disk

Abstract The stability of a rotating disk coupled to the surrounding fluid is investigated analytically and experimentally. Dimensional analysis of the equations governing transverse motion of a centrifugally tensioned, Kirchhoff plate and irrotational flow of a compressible fluid identifies three dimensionless parameters that characterize the state of stability of the fluid-plate system. They are the ratio of the fluid and plate densities, Λ, the Mach number of the periphery of the disk, M, and the ratio of the stiffness of the disk in bending to that derived from centrifugal stresses, ϵ. Numerical analysis of these equations for subsonic speeds (M l 1. The experimental measurements show that instability is independent of ϵ for values of ϵ ranging over several orders of magnitude.