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As of today, technology has pushed the boundaries for gas-turbine systems to improve on the
performances while reducing masses. This means that a requirement of understanding and knowledge
of the behaviour of gas-turbine systems are necessary, especially in a case for complex and thinner
blade shapes which is one of the factor that has always been underestimated. Consequently, the
studies on turbine blades were a little bit backdated as quite a number of researches were run before
The major problems that surfaces in most turbine blade failures would be better known as a
High Cycle Fatigue (HCF) which occurs within a certain condition after a certain operating period. This
condition can be characterized as vibrations of the blades which react to the periodic steam force
projected by frequencies that is derived from the harmonics and operating rotational speed of a gas-
turbine bladed disk. Somehow, this results in changes of amplitudes of the bladed disk vibrations
which are associated with the natural frequency of each blades while the major concern of mistuning
in turbine-blades system is that significant changes in amplitude could occur had the periodic steam
force frequency approaches that of the natural frequency and would in the end generates resonance.
In operation through time periodic loads, this phenomenon would increase continuously transferring
energy to the motion and this behaviour is referred to as forced response. One study has been made
by Roemer et al 1 that alternation in stresses on the blade approaching or on resonant vibration are
the factors for HCF which leads to wear and cracking of blades in a quick rate.
Moreover, any factor that alters the mass or stiffness of the individual blade including
manufacturing tolerances, routine operational wear and even unique engineering application on gas-
turbine blades could lead to a little margin for error when it comes to managing and avoiding
resonance of vibrations. Different methods and approaches had been performed to understand the
dynamic behaviour of mistuning in a gas-turbine blade system whether in obtaining data from
operating turbines to specific analysis of different bladed-disk behaviours. Srivinasan 2 had mentioned
in his early reports that mistuning is ‘measures of departure of aerodynamic and structural parameters
from corresponding reference values …. (And) a direct consequence of this non-uniformity is that
analysis can no longer be assume having a cyclic symmetry’. A better depth of these theories will be
On the other hand, the best means to observe structural changes to an operational bladed-
disk is by direct measurements although in real-time, this would require regular checks in between
each operations and is either cost inefficient or expensive having to replace the blades one by one.
Furthermore, the dynamics of the system are extra sensitive to slight changes where on a later phase,
the vibratory modes of a whole bladed-disk depends on each dynamic characteristics of individual
blade vibration. Additionally in manufacturing terms, the possibilities of retaining a set of identical
group of blades for a bladed disk is minimal or does not exist at all. Hence, the importance of the
analysis of force response for mistuned gas-turbine bladed disk and for those with aerodynamic
damping included is mainly aim to keep the operating stresses within the limits.
In 1965, one of the first research was done using coupling techniques which keeps the blades
and the disk vibration motions in a perfectly tuned system 3. Later, Ewin 4 analysed and concluded that
the natural frequencies of bladed disk assemblies could affect the symmetrical circulation of a blisk.
This was then followed by the modelling of an Orpheous aircraft engine blisk system with a method
5
on finding natural frequencies by Rao et al. having the obtained data associated with the
experimental results where relations between them are positively agreed upon. The resonance of blisk
vibrations was later addressed by Whitehead6 where calculations were derived for all the maximum
methods has also been developed to characterize the mentioned behaviour. An interesting journal
review of turbines in turbomachinery was discussed by Srivinasan on the characteristics of flutter and
resonant vibration of blisks2. Dye et al.7 , Castanier et Al.8, Mikolajczak et Al9, and Petrov et Al.10 had
obtained methods to determine mistuned forced response amplitudes where maximum amplitudes
were discovered and confinement of vibration energy to just a few blades can lead to a disastrously
These methods are later on divided into two general classes of old and new generation of
methods as advances in technologies including materials, design and efficiency all conveys to a more
complex system. The first generation of methods utilize on finite element response-order model. One
method, the Component Mode Synthesis (CMS) 11,12 (18,19) had the components define separately and
either times referred to as fixed-interface, free-interface or hybrid methods. Irretier later reviewed
the application of CMS to reduced-order models of an operational turbine gases and acknowledge the
consistencies in results. 13 (20) Zhang and Wang 14 investigate further by developing a free-interface CMS
to model a number of blades together via shrouds and the study displays a coherent result with a
significant reduce in computer-processing time in relative to those of the finite element methods.
15 (21)
A discovery by Ottarson leads to a more realistic approach where the vibrations were
taken into account as a basis of cantilevered blade modes with a set of shapes revealing the
deformation of the blades produced by vibrations from the disk itself. The same author also suggested
that massless blades should replace the current ones in order to calculate the deformation of the
blades, which naturally defines the disk-induced static shapes for the blades. In another CMS
approach, the bladed-disk modal size are kept small by having the component interface reduced and
16,17
each sector recognized as a separate component. Whitehead had also earlier discovered the
theoretical limit for the maximum amplification gain of the forced response that can be caused by
1
mistuning and is defined to be equal to 2 (1 + √𝑁𝐵 ) where 𝑁𝐵 is the number of blades.
Another case would be the new generation methods or rather known as the system-based
18
methods are later presented by Yang and Griffin which was compared to the subset of nominal
19
modes (SNM) method. This was then followed up with a simpler approach by Feiner and Griffin
where the only required variables are the natural frequencies plus the frequency deviation by the
mistuning of the blisk and is better known as the Fundamental Model of Mistuning. Petrov et Al. 20
modification matrix developed from a set of frequency-response-function (FRF) matrix of the tuned
system and a mistuning forced-response matrix as the excess part of the stiffness matrix. Petrov et Al.
21
had also formulated an optimization problem to search for the worst and best mistuning patterns
where the blades of a mistuned bladed disk are ‘modeled by pretwisted beams with many degrees of
freedom connected by shrouds’. The author had mentioned that although having an estimate of the
Whitehead8 limit to the maximum magnification of the forced response is an added value, certain
conditions that is met by a range of mistuning percentage prescribing the forcing and damping
achieved by a specific turbine bladed disk still remains unclear, hence the significance of the
optimization problem discovered. Kenyon et al.9 later had proven that the Whitehead limit has a
different estimate at phase shifts of the gas flow forcing function from blade to blade for those range
1 𝑁𝐵
other than 0° and 180° and was discovered to be reduced to (1 + √ ).
2 2
At this moment, the technological advances of lighter blades and modern materials challenge
the high vibration conditions of a gas-turbine system efficiency, higher trust-to-weight ratio and more.
Hence the aim of this paper, to analyse the behaviour of mistuned bladed disk by means of analysing
resonant vibration and the effects of force response and engine orders which will be elaborated in the
next chapter.
Fundamentals of Mistuned Bladed-disk Analysis
structural vibration frequencies and specific modes for comparison while identifying the variance in
the parameters of the aero-mechanical properties such as the interblade phase angle, gap and chord.
Besides that, it is also a requirement to understand the behaviour of the unsteady aerodynamic
damping properties and to simulate the gas flow fluctuation at a certain period or phase leading to a
forcing function. From another perspective, the aerodynamic damping characteristics which depend
highly on the sensitivity of the structural damping and response of the blades. Furthermore, force
functions or aerodynamic forces on the blisk are summed up by the conditions of the flow, either
subsonic, transonic or supersonic, and also the mechanical characteristics of the blades such as the
material and profile of the blades, the angles between each blades and the number of blades2. A
general study on the analysis of forced response on gas-turbine blades has been reviewed by
Advance blades uses materials such as ceramic composites aiming to cut down the stress from
the vibrations onto the blade by means of higher internal damping as referred in the articles provided
by Min et Al.22 Geometries of engine blades most of the time do not involve pure bending or pure
torsional motion. Instead, these individual blades are coupled by shrouds perpendicular to the chord
or better known as the flap motion. 2 Thus, the bending and torsional harmonics are interrelated in
each modes with difference response from different types of deformities of the blades.
In the operations of the gas-turbine, the bladed-disk would experience rotations which
applies to each blade an identical set of motion on a certain time. Srivinasan2 had visualises this
experience saying ‘if one could visualize the pattern of vibratory motion by considering it frozen at
an instant of time, then the pattern can be broken into its harmonics, each of which is associated
Bladed disk or blisk assembly shapes up as a typical disk which responses to the deformation
projected by the vibratory modes of the system. This somehow characterized the flexibility and
dynamics of the disk2. When the blades rotate at high speed, they ‘stretch’ the coupling on the
shrouds by the centrifugal force. Griffin23 firstly suggested that these ‘large groups of blades will
always contain some blades that have small vibratory stresses, some that have large stresses, and
many with stresses that lie in between’ and that each group of blades has similarity in the statistical
distribution of blade vibrations. Furthermore, each blades comes with its own natural frequencies in
manufacturing finish and methods to design a bladed disk which manipulates the natural
frequencies does not exist up-to-date. Hence, understanding the parameters that leads to the
characterization of the group of blades mode of vibrations would be important. This mode of
vibrations are better known as the modal shapes and will be explained next in this chapter.
An interblade phase angle is the relation between two different blades in terms of motion of a blade.
In a cyclic symmetry blisk, these blades will vibrate with the same amplitude but with a lag between
two blades. The vibration’s condition is referred to as the travelling wave mode. Since the
relationship has a sum of 360 degree and as the selection of a blade moves around the rotor, the
interblade phase angle is defined in terms of 2𝜋𝐻 and the number of blades, where H is the Engine
Order Number, later explained in the next chapter2. An illustration of an interblade phase angle is
shown below:
Figure 1: A phase shift between Blade 5 and Blade 6 is being shown in this diagram. Courtesy of Wright-State University.
The difference between peak-to-peak amplitudes of the each blade to another is called the phase
shift. The phase shift is generally defined in terms of imaginary and real numbers, where:
Excitation Frequency
As mentioned by Petrov11, the excitation vibration frequency of a kth engine order harmonic
of excitation is related to the rotational speed of the turbine blade’s rotor and can be defined as:
𝜔 = 𝑘Ω
A circle symmetric or asymmetric bladed disk would always response to the mode of vibration
where these modes are then influenced by the structure of the blades, the internal damping, nature
of mistuning of different blades and even the behaviour of individual blades. These sensitive
properties could change accordingly as temperature varies, speed changes and even wear and tear on
blisk from corrosions manipulate the stiffness and weight of the blades. Hence why these varying
providing a pattern on rotating vibrating disk. These patterns as mentioned by Orsargh24 can be
categorized as tangential, axial or torsional. Kenyon confirmed that the vibrations, in general, comes
in a form of harmonic oscillation as the individual blades rotate through the same amplitude and
position repeatedly. These motion could then be translated in the time domain or phase angle
domain where both the frequency and the amplitudes could be derived.25 Figure 1 and 2 below
illustrates the nodal diameters of a tuned and mistuned system as shown by Rao. It can be noted
that a tuned system has an organised distribution of amplitudes which clearly shows the symmetry
of the bladed-disk rotation while the mistuned system blade amplitudes are inconsistent across the
Figure 2: A system with two nodal diameters for a tuned system (Left) and for a mistuned system (Right).
Courtesy of Rao, J. S. 5
A bladed-disk system would response to the vibration when excitation by the flow forces
moves through the vane spacing of the blades. The amplitudes of the blade displacements would, in
general for a tuned-system, vary harmonically upon excitation applied at the resonance frequencies
of the blades. These nodal diameters or the sinusoids that shapes around the blisk are used to describe
these phenomenon and can be produced from the number of nodes divided by half. In most cases,
the difference between the natural frequencies of tuned and mistuned system are in the same range5
but the sensitivity of these differences leads to the non-uniformity of response of each blades when
excited at different resonance amplitude of the blades disrupting the stability of the turbine blades
cyclic symmetric routines. An illustration by Orsargh24 below shows the two-dimensional diagram of a
Figure 3: The dotted lines represent the origin of the disk while those with solid lines illustrates the flexibility and bending
Bladed-disk Modelling
characteristics of the mistuned and tuned turbine system applying the massless beam concept for
the each individual blade. In this manner, each blade is represented by a lumped mass, weightless in
terms of structure and the mass on the tip of the blade profile. Besides that, each blade has its own
individual stiffness and damping coefficients on their connections to the disk where these blades are
also connected to each other by shrouds which comes with its stiffness and damping coefficients and
as for the latter case, the stiffness and damping coefficients are assumed to be similar across the
bladed-disk.
Figure 4: An illustration of a lumped-parameter mass model. Courtesy of Choi, Y.S.26
Since the computational cost of a 3D model of a significant number of blades bladed disks having up
to a few million degrees of freedom is very important, the idea of implementing similar but
simplified structural properties aims to reduce the computational cost by having to model only one
Based on several of the studies described above, manipulation of the blades’ masses directly
affects the condition of the mistuned system. A controlled random distribution with standard
deviations of up to 10% is generated for the studies in this analysis. This random distribution is
‘patented’ or kept in the same order and would later be scaled to the preferred mistuning range for
a consistent set of results. Furthermore, a pattern of 1,000 runs are required for the statistical
approach, hence the initial random distribution restriction would be lifted to allow the following
Aim of this research is to analyse the force response of bladed discs with the effects of
aerodynamic damping included. Initially, parameters are referred from the experiments provided by
Petrov27 for a more relevant outcome. The mistuning of a turbine bladed-disk system is studied by
having their modelling characteristics based on the motion of equation provided. The mistuning
pattern is generated using MatLAB’s software using a random distribution with a limit between -1 to
1. This value would later be multiplied with the range of percentage of mistuning preferred to obtain
a mistuned random distribution. This distribution is then arranged in matrices according to the
equation of motion elaborated above. Only the mass parameters are affected by the mistuning
random distribution.
The eigenvalues and eigenvectors respectively represents the natural frequencies and the
mode shapes of this system. These parameters are subjected to changes accordingly to the values of
the mass, stiffness and damping coefficient of the blades. The relation between the changes in
mistuning percentage to the changes in natural frequencies and mode shapes are vital to analyse the
response and dynamics of a mistuned blisk. The vectors of the mode shapes would differ as well
from these changes of mistuning reflecting the effects on the disk flexibility.
The blade displacements or the mechanical vibration amplitude is found from the results
and comparisons between different percentages and different engine order excitation are made.
The differences between structural damping and aerodynamic damping systems would be giving an
idea on the behaviour of these systems under a condition range by looking at each individual blade’s
movements and relation between all blades. Therefore, having to identify the maximum amplitude
Next, the resulting parameters of natural frequencies and blade displacements are
compared between the tuned and mistuned systems using a mistuning percentage calculation to
percentages and engine excitation order for both mechanical damped and aerodynamic damped
systems. The maximum displacements would be recorded and be compared with the tuned
amplitudes to obtain a ratio which is known as the amplitude gain factor. If the variances are non-
existent, then the ratio would be equal to 1. With the same sample, a histogram of the amplitude
distribution would be gathered for comparison. The observation and discussion will be included in a
For a lumped-parameter model, the structural modelling for the equation of motion is as
followed. The equation of motion for an N number of blades lumped-parameter mass model for a
Where for displacements within a function of time, the excitation amplitude is equal to:
{𝑥} = {Χ}𝑡 ;
And the flow force function in steady-state described the frequency excitation as:
𝐹𝑖 (𝑡) = 𝑓𝑒 𝑒 𝑖(𝑁−1)𝛼 ;
Where 𝑓𝑒 is the engine order excitation force and 𝑖 is the imaginary unit where 𝑖 2 is equals to -1.
The interblade phase angle which is also recognised as a phase difference relationship in terms of
2𝜋𝐻
𝛼=
𝑁
With H being the Engine Order (EO) Number. The engine order number is referred to the number of
cycles or revolution frequency where the frequency of the periodic load is proportional to the
From these, the expansion of the general equation for the number of degree-of-freedom would be:
Where 𝐾, 𝐶 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑀 consecutively represents the system vectors of stiffness, mechanical damping
and masses. 𝑍(𝜔) is referred to as the dynamic stiffness matrix. For analysis which does not take the
aerodynamic damping factors into account, the blade material would experience viscous damping
𝐶 = 𝜉𝐾
Where 𝜉 is the mechanical damping coefficient for each blade. This is derived from the equation of
motion where:
The mode shapes and natural frequencies can be obtained from the eigensolutions of the problem
𝑋 = ∑ 𝐶𝑗 𝜙𝑗
𝑗=1
The 𝜙 here is referred to as the eigensolution and is also equivalent to the following equation:
𝐾𝑥 = 𝜔2 𝑀𝑥
The equation above evaluates two specific components where the left side of the equation refers to
the elastic forces while the right hand side of the equation refers to the inertia forces. The
eigenvalues, 𝜆 is equal to 𝜔2 and where the natural frequencies then would be:
[𝜔] = [√𝜆]
The mode shapes can be characterised from the eigenvectors of the solution where there will be N
number of mode shapes 𝜙 with K number of vectors in each mode shapes and be characterised in
[𝐾 − 𝜔2 𝑀]𝑥 = 0
𝑁
𝑘= ; 𝑘≠0
2
For systems with aerodynamic damping included, it is vital to obtain the eigenvectors which
are obtained from the tuned mass system before proceeding to the equation of motion. The
For a tuned bladed-disk system, the following motion of equation would be:
𝑋 = ∑ 𝐶𝑗 𝜙𝑗 = [𝜙][∁]
𝑗=1
Hence, to find the aerodynamic coefficient, [∁] the motion of equation above would be derived as:
𝜙 𝑇 𝐾𝜙 = [𝜆] = 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑔[𝜔1 2 , 𝜔2 2 , 𝜔3 2 , … . , 𝜔𝑁 2 ],
Where 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑔 refers to a square diagonal matrix of its respective values and 𝜂 is the modal damping
factors obtained from Petrov’s study on finite element models of a gas-turbine blade system as
shown below. The modal damping factors are arranged in a manner of:
[𝜂1 , 𝜂2 , 𝜂3 , … . , 𝜂𝑁 ] = [EO0,EO1,EO-1,EO2,EO-2,…,EOn]
The list of values for each EO will be provided in the parameter section.
Figure 5: Courtesy of Petrov27
For a mistuned bladed disc, the motion of equation requires the differences between the
As mentioned by Petrov27 in his article, the matrix of mode shapes or the eigenvectors, 𝜙 comprises
of mode shapes for all engine orders for an aerodynamically mistuned bladed disk including cases for
backward travelling and forward travelling wave modes (k < 0 or k > 0):
𝜙 = [𝜙 𝑁 , 𝜙 𝑁 , … . ,0, … . , 𝜙 𝑁 , 𝜙𝑁 ]
− −
2 2+1 2−1 2
Thus, to find the displacements of the blades for tuned and mistuned system with aerodynamic
damping included, the resolution can be found from the eigenvectors of the structure relation with
𝑋 = ∑ 𝐶𝑗 𝜙𝑗 = [𝜙][∁]
𝑗=1
𝜔
Ω=
𝐻
Parameters were regulated at a certain specific which is generally related to those obtain
from studies by Petrov personally. These parameters includes the stiffness, masses, damping
coefficient, etc. The list of parameters and its values will be listed in the later part of the report.
The system would have a number of N degree-of-freedom and the formulation for the
equation of motion for j-th number of blade of the disk can be defined as:
𝑀𝑗 𝑥̈𝑗 + 𝐶𝑗 𝑥̇𝑗 + 𝐾𝑗 𝑥𝑗 + 𝐶𝑗 𝜍 (𝑥̇𝑗 − 𝑥̇𝑗−1 ) + 𝐾𝑗 𝜍 (𝑥𝑗 − 𝑥𝑗−1 ) + 𝐶𝑗+1 𝜍 (𝑥̇𝑗 − 𝑥̇𝑗+1 ) + 𝐾𝑗 𝜍 (𝑥𝑗 − 𝑥𝑗+1 ) = 𝑓𝑗 𝑒 𝑖𝛼(𝑗−1)
Where the superscript 𝜍 refers to the shroud components of stiffness and damping coefficient which
the centrifugal force is applied onto, while 𝑒 is the exponential function and 𝛼 is the equivalent
interblade phase angle. The scheme of matrices for each component of stiffness, masses, damping
coefficient and force function are found from the above equation and can be defined as below:
𝑀1 0 ⋯ 0
0 𝑀2 0 ⋮
𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠, [𝑀] = [ ],
⋮ 0 ⋱ 0
0 ⋯ 0 𝑀𝑛
𝐾1 + 𝐾1 𝜍 + 𝐾2 𝜍 −𝐾2 𝜍 ⋯ −𝐾1 𝜍
−𝐾2 𝜍 𝐾2 + 𝐾2 𝜍 + 𝐾3 𝜍 −𝐾3 𝜍 ⋮
𝑆𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠, [𝐾] = ,
⋮ −𝐾3 𝜍 ⋱ 0
[ −𝐾1 𝜍 ⋯ 0 𝐾𝑛 + 𝐾𝑛 𝜍 + 𝐾𝑛+1 𝜍 ]
𝐶1 + 𝐶1 𝜍 + 𝐶2 𝜍 −𝐶2 𝜍 ⋯ −𝐶1 𝜍
−𝐶2 𝜍 𝐶2 + 𝐶2 𝜍 + 𝐶3 𝜍 −𝐶3 𝜍 ⋮
𝐷𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡, [𝐶] = ,
⋮ −𝐶3 𝜍 ⋱ 0
[ −𝐶1 𝜍 ⋯ 0 𝐶𝑛 + 𝐶𝑛 𝜍 + 𝐶𝑛+1 𝜍 ]
𝑓
𝑓𝑒 𝑖𝑎
𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝐹𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, [𝐹] = 𝑓𝑒 2𝑖𝑎
⋮
[𝑓𝑒 𝑖(𝑁−1)𝛼 ]
Petrov had also mentioned that the amplitudes of the forced response for both directions of
the travelling waves are identical. Excitation by engine order number of ±2EO, ±3EO, ±5EO, ±6EO,
±10EO and ±15EO was considered in the analysis where the positive EO is referred to as the
forward travelling wave excitation while the negative refers to the backward travelling wave
excitation.
MatLAB Script
A MatLAB script, which is a certain type of numerical computation computer software, had
been designed to simulate the modelling equation and the results obtained characterizes the
behaviour of a tuned and mistuned gas-turbine bladed disk using plotted graphs and data. A
flowchart has been included in this report and the MatLAB script written in phases was described.
The collection of results represent the motion of each blades and these results are later
compared with different methods. Here, the idea of each graphs and plots will be elaborated while
the results will be discussed and explained later in the following chapter.
The first graph represents an overall view of the behaviour of each blades across a chosen
range of excitation frequencies. Comparison between ranges of tuned to mistuned systems with
different forced response engine excitation order numbers can be observed conveniently from this
results. If the first graph could be referred to as a three dimensional plot, the two latter plots
represent the two dimensional perspective of the first graph, where each would plot the maximum
displacement experience by each blades or plot the maximum displacement for all blades across all
excitation frequency range. An additional plot of bars were obtained to observe the maximum
Two bar graphs displaying the percentage ratio difference between a tuned and a mistuned
system was also scripted. The first graph represents the percentage ratio variance between the
tuned blade forced response amplitude and the mistuned blade displacements while the latter
represents the percentage ratio difference between the tuned and the mistuned natural frequencies
for all chosen engine order number. A plot to show the natural frequencies for each nodal diameter
Lastly, the mode shapes of each mistuned and tuned system were plotted using the
eigenvectors for each modes. The characteristics of the disk vibration can be observed from these
set of results.
The results were split into two where the mechanical damping system and the aerodynamic
This script is later modified to run 1000 repetition to simulate the number of randomly
generated mistuned system for a chosen percentage. The maximum amplitudes obtained from these
runs were recorded and compared. The sets of data include histograms of maximum blade
displacement repetition frequencies and plots comparing the amplification gain factor of each