AbstractThe equations of motion of a rotor finite element subjected to six components of base excitation are developed by applying variational principles. The equations contain speed dependent gyroscopic terms, base rotation dependent parametric terms and several forcing function terms which depend upon the linear accelerations, rotational accelerations and a combination of linear and rotational velocities. To evaluate the importance of various terms, seismic response characteristics of a rotating machine subjected to simulated base excitations are studied. It is observed that even for strong rotational inputs the parametric terms in the equation of motion can be ignored without affecting the response. The rotational input terms in the forcing function, however, are quite important and can be ignored only when they are not very strong. Since the problematic parametric terms can be ignored, one can use a generalied modal analysis approach.