Vibration analysis of an axial turbine blisk with optimized intentional mistuning pattern

Abstract With the objective of attenuating the forced response of an axial turbine blisk for ship Diesel engine applications efforts have been made to increase the aerodynamic damping contribution for the most critical modes. In this regard the potential of intentional mistuning is investigated since it offers the opportunity to ensure a safe operation without a severe loss of aerodynamic performance. Genetic algorithms have been chosen to derive an optimized mistuning pattern resulting in a forced response clearly below that of the tuned counterpart. In order to keep the manufacturing effort within a limit only two possible blade geometries are allowed, which means that an integer optimization problem has been formulated. For the purpose of demonstrating the benefit of the intentional mistuning pattern found, two blisk prototypes have been manufactured: One with and another one without employing intentional mistuning for purposes of comparison. Furthermore, this offers the opportunity for an experimental determination of actually manufactured mistuning and other modal properties as well. The experimental data basis is employed to update structural models, which are well suited to demonstrate the forced response reduction under operational conditions. Finally, the robustness of the gain achieved with intentional mistuning could be proved towards both additional but unavoidable random structural and aerodynamic mistuning.