Abstract: The partially cyclic symmetry of the displacement and stress field in a typical rotor with curvic couplings is shown by carrying out a photoelastic experiment for the rotor. According to the characteristics of the cyclic symmetric displacement and stress field, the technique of cyclic symmetric contact finite element stress analysis for the cyclic symmetric zones with contact surfaces in a rotor subjected to centrifugal, aerodynamic, and thermal loads is established. Various cyclic symmetric contact relations and the corresponding contact criteria for a pair of solid nodes or shell nodes are derived. The relations can be incorporated into the stiffness equations of the basic segment of a rotor in a unified form by using 4 multiplier matrices. The analysis of a transient zone between several cyclic symmetric zones is reduced to the analyses of several small scale cyclic symmetric problems by using the superposition theorem. Finally, as an example, the partially cyclic symmetric contact problem of a stage of a compresser rotor analyzed by using the program based on the present technique is described briefly, and the numerical results are compared with the corresponding photoelastic experimental results.

Key words: rotor with cuTVic couplings, partially cyclic symmetry, cyclicsymmetric con-finite element stress analysis