Combined Airfoil and Snubber Design Optimization of Turbine Blades With Respect to Friction Damping

Abstract

A major concern for new generations of large turbine blades is forced and self-excited (flutter) vibrations, which can cause high-cycle fatigue (HCF). The design of friction joints is a commonly applied strategy for systematic reduction of resonance amplitudes at critical operational conditions. In this paper, the influence of geometric blade design parameters onto the damped system response is investigated for direct snubber coupling. A simplified turbine blade geometry is parametrized and a well-proven reduced-order model for turbine blade dynamics under friction damping is integrated into a 3D finite element tool-chain. The developed process is then used in combination with surrogate modeling to predict the effect of geometric design parameters onto the vibrational characteristics. As such, main and interaction effects of design variables onto static normal contact force and resonance amplitudes are determined for a critical first bending mode. Parameters were found to influence the static normal contact force based on their effect on elasticity of the snubber, torsional stiffness of the airfoil and free blade untwist. The results lead to the conclusion that geometric design parameters mainly affect the resonance amplitude equivalent to their influence on static normal contact force in the friction joint. However, it is demonstrated that geometric airfoil parameters influence blade stiffness and are significantly changing the respective mode shapes, which can lead to lower resonance amplitudes despite an increase in static contact loads. Finally, an evolutionary optimization is carried out and novel design guidelines for snubbered blades with friction damping are formulated.