Modal Analyses of an Axial Turbine Blisk With Intentional Mistuning

The potential of intentional mistuning to reduce the maximum forced response is analyzed within the development of an axial turbine blisk for ship diesel engine turbocharger applications. The basic idea of the approach is to provide an increased aerodynamic damping level for particular engine order (EO) excitations and mode shapes without any significant distortions of the aerodynamic performance. The mistuning pattern intended to yield a mitigation of the forced response is derived from an optimization study applying genetic algorithms. Two blisk prototypes have been manufactured a first one with and another one without employing intentional mistuning. Hence, the differences regarding the real mistuning and other modal properties can be experimentally determined and evaluated as well. In addition, the experimental data basis allows for updating structural models which are well suited to compute the forced response under operational conditions. In this way, the real benefit achieved with the application of intentional mistuning is demonstrated.