In this thesis, the rotating part of a torque converter in an automatic transmission assembly is modeled as a shaft with uniformly distributed mass and a disk with a concentrated mass and moment of inertia. Three models were considered depending on the number of supporting bearings. An analytical approach of the rotating beam equation was used to predict natural frequencies and critical speeds. A discretized version of the equation was also used for comparison. The effects of various non-dimensional parameters were also studied to see changes in dynamic characteristics, including forward and backward whirls. Vibration characteristics were measured by a gap sensor and different behaviors were discussed in terms of the number of supports. It is shown that the approach can be utilized in practice to predict dynamic behavior of the system.
