Modeling and analysis of a mistuned fan blisk

Turbomachinery has a vital role in the industrial engineering and the bladed disks such as; compressor, impeller pumps, turbine generator and jet engines are the critical components of turbomachinery. This work is focused on the “mistuning effect” of bladed disks of a turbine, which creates the lack of symmetry and ultimately damages the turbine blade. In order to completely understand the severity of the damage caused by the mistuning effect on the turbine disk, the study and analysis of the model parameters is very important. This work provides an insight to the various effects caused by the presence of crack and mistuning levels, in the mistuned turbine blisk, by using smeared material properties and modal assurance criterion (MAC) techniques. Moreover, a mistuned blisk model with four cracks (at various locations and different depth levels) has been developed and compared with the tuned blisk model, in order to determine the severity of damage occurred. The MAC results indicate that the severity of damage may vary depending on the location and depth of the crack and mistuning may alter the dynamic and vibrational characteristics of the structure.

Nonproportional Intentionally Mistuned Turbine Blisk Design with Improved Component Modal Synthesis

An improved component modal synthesis-based nonproportional mistuning method (ICMS-NPMM) is proposed to investigate mistuned turbine blisks (MTBs) since the high-fidelity finite element models (HFEMs) involve large number of computations, which leads to low calculation efficiency. To reduce degrees of freedom and suppress the flutter of MTB, it is divided into mistuned blade structure and tuned disk structure, and the intentional mistuning is considered. Furthermore, the mistuned parameters, nonproportional mistuning, and complex loads are also considered. Firstly, the basic theory of ICMS-NPMM is investigated; secondly, the model of MTB is established via ICMS-NPMM; finally, the intentionally mistuned design of modal shape amplitudes (MSAs) is investigated via ICMS-NPMM. The results indicate that the calculation efficiency is enhanced via ICMS-NPMM relative to that of via HFEM. In addition, the sensitivity and the flutter are decreased; meanwhile, the amplitude fluctuations of MSAs are distinctly decreased and become comparatively smooth. This investigation provides an important guidance for the vibration characteristic study of complex mechanical structures in engineering practice.

Experimental and Numerical Quantification of the Aerodynamic Damping of a Turbine Blisk

Aerodynamic damping is the key parameter to determine the stability of vibrating blade rows in turbomachinery design. Both, the assessments of flutter and forced response vibrations need an accurate estimate of the aerodynamic damping to reduce the risk of high cycle fatigue that may result in blade loss. However, only very few attempts have been made to measure the aerodynamic damping of rotating blade rows experimentally under realistic operating conditions, but always with friction damping being present. This study closes the gap by providing an experiment in which a turbine blisk is used to eliminate friction damping at the blade roots and thereby isolate aerodynamic damping. The blades are excited acoustically and the resulting nodal diameter modes are measured using an optical tip-timing system in order to realize a fully non-intrusive setup. The measured vibration data are fitted to a single degree-of-freedom model (SDOF) to determine the aerodynamic damping. The results are in good accordance with the time-linearized CFD simulation. It is observed, however, that not only the sweep rate of the acoustic excitation but also the variation of the rotational frequency during the sweep excitation, and the excitation frequency influence the apparent damping.

Vibration Analysis of a Mistuned Axial Turbine Blisk

An axial turbine blisk for turbocharger applications is analyzed with respect to the effect of intentional mistuning on the forced response. Originally, the intentional mistuning pattern has been designed by employing a genetic algorithm optimization in order to reduce the forced response caused by low engine order excitation (LEO) of the fundamental flap mode. The solution found has been implemented in a prototype of that blisk. For the purpose of comparison, a second reference blisk has been manufactured without intentional mistuning. The actual mistuning distributions of the blisks have been identified by employing blade-by-blade impact testing. Alternatively, a new inverse approach has been employed, which is based on a least squares formulation and benefits from less experimental effort. Based on the information gained by the aforementioned testing procedures, subset of nominal systems (SNM)-models have been updated, which allow for considering the aeroelastic coupling by means of aerodynamic influence coefficients (AIC). Despite of small but unavoidable deviations from the design intention it could be proved within numerical simulations that the intended 70 per cent reduction of the maximum forced response is nevertheless achieved. In addition, the paper is addressing the effect of the aforementioned intentional mistuning pattern on a higher mode, which is relevant for the durability as well. Hence, new SNM-models have to be updated in order to calculate the forced response due to EO-excitation caused by the nozzle guide vane. Although the original mistuning pattern has been optimized solely for reducing the forced response of the fundamental flap mode, it hardly affects the higher mode forced response in a negative manner.

Reliability-Based Low Fatigue Life Analysis of Turbine Blisk with Generalized Regression Extreme Neural Network Method

Turbine blisk low cycle fatigue (LCF) is affected by various factors such as heat load, structural load, operation parameters and material parameters; it seriously influences the reliability and performance of the blisk and aeroengine. To study the influence of thermal-structural coupling on the reliability of blisk LCF life, the generalized regression extreme neural network (GRENN) method was proposed by integrating the basic thoughts of generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and the extreme response surface method (ERSM). The mathematical model of the developed GRENN method was first established in respect of the LCF life model and the ERSM model. The method and procedure for reliability and sensitivity analysis based on the GRENN model were discussed. Next, the reliability and sensitivity analyses of blisk LCF life were performed utilizing the GRENN method under a thermal-structural interaction by regarding the randomness of gas temperature, rotation speed, material parameters, LCF performance parameters and the minimum fatigue life point of the objective of study. The analytical results reveal that the reliability degree was 0.99848 and the fatigue life is 9419 cycles for blisk LCF life when the allowable value is 6000 cycles so that the blisk has some life margin relative to 4500 cycles in the deterministic analysis. In comparison with ERSM, the computing time and precision of the proposed GRENN under 10,000 simulations is 1.311 s and 99.95%. This is improved by 15.18% in computational efficiency and 1.39% in accuracy, respectively. Moreover, high efficiency and high precision of the developed GRENN become more obvious with the increasing number of simulations. In light of the sensitivity analysis, the fatigue ductility index and temperature are the key factors of determining blisk LCF life because their effect probabilities reach 41% and 26%, respectively. Material density, rotor speed, the fatigue ductility coefficient, the fatigue strength coefficient and the fatigue ductility index are also significant parameters for LCF life. Poisson’s ratio and elastic modulus of materials have little effect. The efforts of this paper validate the feasibility and validity of GRENN in the reliability analysis of blisk LCF life and give the influence degrees of various random parameters on blisk LCF life, which are promising to provide useful insights for the probabilistic optimization of turbine blisk LCF life.

Weighted Regression-Based Extremum Response Surface Method for Structural Dynamic Fuzzy Reliability Analysis

The parameters considered in structural dynamic reliability analysis have strong uncertainties during machinery operation, and affect analytical precision and efficiency. To improve structural dynamic fuzzy reliability analysis, we propose the weighted regression-based extremum response surface method (WR-ERSM) based on extremum response surface method (ERSM) and weighted regression (WR), by considering the randomness of design parameters and the fuzziness of the safety criterion. Therein, we utilize the ERSM to process the transient to improve computational efficiency, by transforming the random process of structural output response into a random variable. We employ the WR to find the efficient samples with larger weights to improve the calculative accuracy. The fuzziness of the safety criterion is regarded to improve computational precision in the WR-ERSM. The WR-ERSM is applied to perform the dynamic fuzzy reliability analysis of an aeroengine turbine blisk with the fluid-structure coupling technique, and is verified by the comparison of the Monte Carlo (MC) method, equivalent stochastic transformation method (ESTM) and ERSM, with the emphasis on model-fitting property and simulation performance. As revealed from this investigation, (1) the ERSM has the capacity of processing the transient of the structural dynamic reliability evaluation, and (2) the WR approach is able to improve modeling accuracy, and (3) regarding the fuzzy safety criterion is promising to improve the precision of structural dynamic fuzzy reliability evaluation, and (4) the change rule of turbine blisk structural stress from start to cruise for the aircraft is acquired with the maximum value of structural stress at t = 165 s and the reliability degree (Pr = 0.997) of turbine blisk. The proposed WR-ERSM can improve the efficiency and precision of structural dynamic reliability analysis. Therefore, the efforts of this study provide a promising method for structural dynamic reliability evaluation with respect to working processes.