An Inverse Approach to Identify Tuned Aerodynamic Damping, System Frequencies and Mistuning: Part 3 — Application to Engine Data

Abstract

Abstract A novel approach for the identification of tuned aerodynamic damping, system frequencies, forcing and mistuning has been introduced in the first part of this paper. It is based on the forced response equations of motion for a blade dominated mode family. A least squares formulation allows to identify the system’s parameters directly from measured frequency response functions (FRFs) of all blades recorded during a sweep through a resonance. The second part has dealt with its modification and application to experimental modal analyses of blisks at rest. This 3rd part aims at presenting the application of the approach to blade tip timing (BTT) data acquired in rig tests. Therefore, blisk rotors of two different engines are studied: a single stage fan rig and a 4.5 stage high pressure compressor (HPC) rig. The rig test campaign of the fan blisk included also an intentional mistuning experiment that allows to study the performance of the identification approach for a similar rotor with two different mistuning levels. It is demonstrated that the approach can identify aerodynamic damping curves, system frequencies, mistuning pattern and forced travelling wave modes (TWMs) from state of the art BTT data monitored during rig or engine tests. All derived mistuning patterns could be verified with reference measurements at standstill. The derived aerodynamic damping curves and system frequencies show a reasonable agreement with simulations. For the HPC case a multitude of excited TWMs could be identified which also lines up with previous simulations.