Effects of a cracked blade on mistuned turbine engine rotor vibration

An efficient methodology for predicting the nonlinear forced vibration response of a turbine engine rotor with a cracked blade is presented and used to investigate the effects of the damage on the forced response. The influence of small random blade-to-blade differences (mistuning) and rotation on the forced response are also considered. Starting with a finite element model, a hybrid-interface method of component mode synthesis (CMS) is employed to generate a reduced-order model (ROM). The crack surfaces are retained as physical degrees of freedom in the ROM so that the forces due to contact in three-dimensional space can be properly calculated. The resulting nonlinear equations of steady-state motion are solved by applying an alternating frequency/time-domain method, which is much more computationally efficient than traditional time integration. Using this reduced-order modeling and analysis framework, the effects of the cracked blade on the system response of an example rotor are investigated for various mistuning levels and rotation speeds. First, the advantages of the selected hybrid-interface CMS method are discussed and demonstrated. Then, the resonant frequency shift associated with the stiffness loss due to the crack and the vibration localization about the cracked blade are thoroughly investigated. In addition, the results of the nonlinear ROMs are compared with those obtained with linear ROMs, as well as blade-alone ROMs. It is shown that several key system vibration characteristics are not captured by the simpler models, but that some insight into the system response can be gained from the blade-alone response predictions. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that while the effects of the crack often appear similar to those of mistuning, the effects of mistuning and damage can be distinguished by observing and comparing the response across multiple families of system modes.