The potential of intentional mistuning to reduce the maximum forced response is analyzed within the development of an axial turbine blisk for ship diesel engine turbocharger applications. The basic idea of the approach is to provide an increased aerodynamic damping level for particular engine order (EO) excitations and mode shapes without any significant distortions of the aerodynamic performance. The mistuning pattern intended to yield a mitigation of the forced response is derived from an optimization study applying genetic algorithms. Two blisk prototypes have been manufactured a first one with and another one without employing intentional mistuning. Hence, the differences regarding the real mistuning and other modal properties can be experimentally determined and evaluated as well. In addition, the experimental data basis allows for updating structural models which are well suited to compute the forced response under operational conditions. In this way, the real benefit achieved with the application of intentional mistuning is demonstrated.

The effect of intentional mistuning has been analyzed for an axial turbocharger blisk with the objective of limiting the forced response due to low engine order excitation (LEO). The idea behind the approach was to increase the aerodynamic damping for the most critical fundamental mode in a way that a safe operation is ensured without severely losing aerodynamic performance. Apart from alternate mistuning, a more effective mistuning pattern is investigated, which has been derived by means of optimization employing genetic algorithms. In order to keep the manufacturing effort as small as possible, only two blade different geometries have been allowed, which means that an integer optimization problem has been formulated. Two blisk prototypes have been manufactured for purpose of demonstrating the benefit of the intentional mistuning pattern identified in this way: A first one with and a second one without employing intentional mistuning. The real mistuning of the prototypes has been experimentally identified. It is shown that the benefit regarding the forced response reduction is retained in spite of the negative impact of unavoidable additional mistuning due to the manufacturing process. Independently, further analyzes have been focused on the robustness of the solution by considering increasing random structural mistuning and aerodynamic mistuning as well. The latter one has been modeled by means of varying aerodynamic influence coefficients (AIC) as part of Monte Carlo simulations. Reduced order models have been employed for these purposes.

In order to prepare an advanced 4-stage high-pressure compressor rig test campaign, details regarding both accomplishment and analysis of preliminary experiments are provided in this paper. The superior objective of the research project is to contribute to a reliable but simultaneously less conservative design of future high pressure blade integrated disks (blisk). It is planned to achieve trend-setting advances based on a close combination of both numerical and experimental analyses. The analyses are focused on the second rotor of this research compressor, which is the only one being manufactured as blisk. The comprehensive test program is addressing both surge and forced response analyses e.g. caused by low engine order excitation. Among others the interaction of aeroelastics and blade mistuning is demanding attention in this regard. That is why structural models are needed, allowing for an accurate forced response prediction close to reality. Furthermore, these models are required to support the assessment of blade tip timing (BTT) data gathered in the rig tests and strain gauge (s/g) data as well. To gain the maximum information regarding the correlation between BTT data, s/g-data and pressure gauge data, every blade of the second stage rotor (28 blades) is applied with s/g. However, it is well known that s/g on blades can contribute additional mistuning that had to be considered upon updating structural models.Due to the relevance of mistuning, efforts are made for its accurate experimental determination. Blade-by-blade impact tests according to a patented approach are used for this purpose. From the research point of view, it is most interesting to determine both the effect s/g-instrumentation and assembling the compressor stages on blade frequency mistuning. That is why experimental mistuning tests carried out immediately after manufacturing the blisk are repeated twice, namely, after s/g instrumentation and after assembling. To complete the pre-test program, the pure mechanical damping and modal damping ratios dependent on the ambient pressure are experimentally determined inside a pressure vessel. Subsequently the mistuning data gained before is used for updating subset of nominal system mode (SNM) models. Aerodynamic influence coefficients (AICs) are implemented to take aeroelastic interaction into account for forced response analyses. Within a comparison of different models, it is shown for the fundamental flap mode (1F) that the s/g instrumentation significantly affects the forced response, whereas the impact of assembling the compressor plays a minor role.

The manufacturing geometrical variability is a source of uncertainty, which cannot be avoided in the realization of machinery components. Deviations of a part geometry from its nominal design are inevitably present due to the manufacturing process. In the case of the aeroelastic forced response problem within axial compressors, these uncertainties may affect the vibration characteristics. For this reason, the impact of geometrical uncertainties due to the manufacturing process onto the modal forcing of axial compressor blades is investigated in this study. The research focuses on the vibrational behavior of an axial compressor rotor blisk. In particular, the amplitude of the forces acting as a source of excitation on the vibrating blades is studied. The geometrical variability of the upstream stator is investigated as input uncertainty. The variability is modeled starting from a series of optical surface scans. A stochastic model is created to represent the measured manufacturing geometrical deviations from the nominal model. A data reduction methodology is proposed in order to represent the uncertainty with a minimal set of variables. The manufacturing geometrical variability model allows to represent the input uncertainty and probabilistically evaluate its impact on the aeroelastic problem. An uncertainty quantification is performed in order to evaluate the resulting variability on the modal forcing acting on the vibrating rotor blades. Of particular interest is the possible rise of low engine orders due to the mistuned flow field along the annulus. A reconstruction algorithm allows the representation of the variability during one rotor revolution. The uncertainty on low harmonics of the modal rotor forcing can be therefore identified and quantified.

The forced response of an E3E-type high pressure compressor blisk front rotor is analyzed with regard to intentional mistuning and its robustness towards additional random mistuning. Both a chosen alternating mistuning pattern and artificial mistuning patterns optimized concerning the forced response are considered. Focusing on three different blade modes, subset of nominal system mode-based reduced order models are employed to compute the forced response. The disk remains unchanged while the Young’s modulus of each blade is used to define the particular mistuning pattern. The well established aerodynamic influence coefficient technique is employed to model aeroelastic coupling and hence to consider the strongly mode- and inter blade phase angle-dependent aerodynamic damping contribution. It has been found that a reduction of the maximum forced response beyond that of the tuned reference can be achieved for particular mistuning patterns and all modes considered. This implies an exciting engine order which would cause a low nodal diameter mode in case of a tuned blisk. At best a nearly 50% reduction of maximum response magnitudes is computed for the fundamental bending mode and large mistuning. The solution proved to be robust towards additional random mistuning of reasonable magnitude, which is of particular interest with regard to a potential technical realization. In case of small mistuning as assumed for the first torsion and the longitudinal bending mode the advantage of achieving response magnitudes beyond the tuned reference gets lost indeed, if random mistuning is superimposed. However, mostly a lower response level is calculated compared to responses obtained from models adjusted to mistuning determined by experiment.

The radial turbine impeller of an exhaust turbocharger is analyzed in view of both free vibration and forced response. Due to random blade mistuning resulting from unavoidable inaccuracies in manufacture or material inhomogeneities, localized modes of vibration may arise, which involve the risk of severely magnified blade displacements and inadmissibly high-stress levels compared to the tuned counterpart. Contrary, the use of intentional mistuning (IM) has proved to be an efficient measure to mitigate the forced response. Independently, the presence of aerodynamic damping is significant with respect to limit the forced response since structural damping ratios of integrally bladed rotors typically take extremely low values. Hence, detailed knowledge of respective damping ratios would be desirable while developing a robust rotor design. For this, far-reaching experimental investigations are carried out to determine the damping of a comparative wheel within a wide pressure range by simulating operation conditions in a pressure tank. Reduced-order models are built up for designing suitable intentional mistuning patterns by using the subset of nominal system modes approach introduced by Yang and Griffin (2001, “A Reduced-Order Model of Mistuning Using a Subset of Nominal System Modes,” J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 123(4), pp. 893–900), which conveniently allows for accounting both differing mistuning patterns and the impact of aeroelastic interaction by means of aerodynamic influence coefficients. Further, finite element analyses are carried out in order to identify appropriate measures of how to implement intentional mistuning patterns, which are featuring only two different blade designs. In detail, the impact of specific geometric modifications on blade natural frequencies is investigated. The first part of this three-part paper is focused on designing the IM pattern. The second and third part following, later on, will address the topics (i) experimental validation after implementation of the IM pattern at rest and under rotation, and (ii) the development of an approach for fast estimating damping ratios in the design phase.