Forced response analysis of bladed disk assemblies plays a crucial role in rotor blade design, and therefore has been investigated by researchers extensively. However, due to lack of computation power, several studies in the literature utilize either linear mistuned models which are short of capturing nonlinear effects, or non-linear tuned models which do not catch the effects of mistuning. Studying the combined effect of the two, namely non-linearity and mistuning, is relatively recent and generally conducted with methods whose convergence and accuracy depend highly on the number of degrees of freedom related with the non-linear elements. In this paper, a new approach is proposed to predict forced response of frictionally damped mistuned bladed disk assemblies in modal domain. A friction element, which enables normal load variation and separation of the contact interface, is utilized to determine the non-linear contact forces in three-dimensional space, and harmonic balance method is used to obtain a relationship between the non-linear contact forces and the relative motion. As mistuning phenomenon destroys the cyclic symmetry, modeling the whole assembly rather than a sector of it is necessary, which increases the number of non-linear elements required considerably. In the proposed approach, the analysis is carried out in modal domain where the differential equations of motions are converted to a set of non-linear algebraic equations using harmonic balance method and modal superposition technique. Thus, the number of non-linear equations to be solved is proportional to the number of modes retained, rather than the number of degrees of freedom related with the nonlinear elements. Therefore, the proposed approach can be applied to realistic bladed disk models without increasing the number of non-linear equations. Moreover, to accomplish this it is not required to use a reduced order model in the method suggested. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the implementation of the method: a lumped parameter bladed disk model and an academic bladed disk model with shrouds.Copyright © 2010 by ASME