Abstract
It has been observed that under certain conditions a gimbal-mounted gyroscope will assume a whirl of increasing amplitude upon the application of an impulsive force, the rate of increase of amplitude depending upon the gimbal inertia and the type and condition of the rotor bearings.
This paper describes experimental and theoretical work carried out to investigate the effects of varying the gimbal inertia and bearing clearance upon the motion of the rotor shaft within its bearings during whirling, and upon the stability of the system. The investigation has been limited to systems in which the rotor shaft runs in ball races as most gimbal-mounted gyroscopes are of this type.
The design of a suitable experimental rig to represent the simplest possible system is discussed and a description of the rig used is given. Theory, based on the experimentally observed behaviour of the rotor shaft within the bearing is given. The effects of varying the bearing clearance thus predicted are shown to have similar trends to the experimentally observed behaviour for the cases considered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.