Characterization of Turbine Blade Friction Dampers

Abstract

This paper discusses an approach for characterizing the dynamic behavior of a friction damper. To accomplish this, the deflection of the damper is measured as a function of an applied force for a range of amplitudes, normal loads, and excitation frequencies. The resulting hysteresis curves are used to generate curves of nonlinear stiffness and damping as a function of the amplitude of motion. A method of presenting this information in a dimensionless format is demonstrated. This format allows direct comparisons of the nonlinear stiffness and damping of actual dampers with that often used in analytical models to compute the dynamic response of frictionally damped turbine blades. It is shown that for the case of a damper with a spherical head significant differences exist between the actual behavior of the damper and that often assumed in simple analytical models. In addition, Mindlin’s analysis of a sphere on a half space is used to estimate the damper’s stiffness as well as its theoretical hysteresis curves. The hysteresis curves are then used to determine dimensionless stiffness and damping curves. The results compare favorably with those found experimentally.