6th Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics, ACAM 6

12-15 December 2010, Perth, Australia

Fluid-structure interaction study of gas turbine blade vibrations

*

Gareth L. Forbes , Osama N. Alshroof and Robert B. Randall

The School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia
*

Corresponding author. Email: g.forbes10@gmail.com

Abstract: A recent research program has identified the possibility of using the analysis of casing wall
pressures in the direct measurement of gas turbine rotor blade vibration amplitudes.
Currently the dominant method of non-contact measurement of gas turbine blade vibrations employs
the use of a number of proximity probes located around the engine periphery measuring the blade tip
(arrival) time (BTT). Despite the increasing ability of this method there still exist some limitations, viz:
the requirement of a large number of sensors for each engine stage, sensitivity to sensor location,
difficulties in dealing with multiple excitation frequencies and sensors being located in the gas path.
Analytical modelling of the casing wall pressures and reconstruction of rotor blade vibration amplitudes
from the analysis of these simulated pressure signals has shown significant improvement over current
non-contact rotor blade vibration measurement limitations by requiring only a limited number of
sensors and providing robust rotor blade vibration amplitude estimates in the presence of simulated
measurement noise. However, this modelling was conducted with some fundamental assumptions
about the casing wall pressures being made. One of these assumptions presumed that during blade
motion the pressure profile around the rotor blades follows the blades motion while it oscillates around
its equilibrium position. This assumption is investigated in this paper through the numerical modelling
of the fully coupled two-way rotor blade motion and fluid pressure interaction.
Keywords: blade vibration, casing wall pressure, fluid-structure interaction, gas turbine.

1 Introduction
The greatest cause of failures in gas turbines, reported to be up to 42% of total gas turbine failures,
come from blade faults [1]. Blade vibration is unavoidable and inherent in the operation of any gas
turbine and without proper design for the excitation forces present, blade vibrations can be a cause of
blade degradation and lead to failure. It is paramount that blade vibration can be measured and blade
fatigue be estimated.
Gas turbine blade vibration measurement is motivated by the desire to acquire either the blades
forced vibration magnitude and frequency, or to estimate the modal parameters of the blade. The
impetus for this information is generally driven, respectively, by the need for knowledge of High Cycle
Fatigue estimates for blade life, or the use of blade modal parameter values for condition monitoring of
the blades.
Measurement of blade vibration can be achieved by directly attaching strain gauges to the blade
surface, however the attachment of sensors to all blades within the engine is never desirable, and is
certainly not practical outside of the design stage. Such are the difficulties of direct measurement of
blade vibration, non-contact blade vibration measurement has been sought, with BTT methods
showing the most promise and receiving research attention since the 1970s. Despite the promise of
BTT methods they are still not without limitations or shortcomings four decades after their initial use.
In a recent research project it was proposed that blade vibration would have an effect on the casing
wall pressure and casing vibration, and thus measurement of these parameters could be used for
monitoring of blade vibration parameters [2]. It was shown that direct demodulation of simulated
internal casing pressure signals could yield the measurement of rotor blade vibration amplitudes [3],
and that observation of casing vibration signals could lead to the ability to estimate rotor blade natural
frequencies [4]. The analysis performed in both of the previous studies was based on the assumption
that the pressure profile around the rotor blade followed the blades motion as it oscillated about its
equilibrium position and that the pressure at the rotor blade tip was not appreciably changed from that
which is imposed on the turbine casing. The first of these assumptions is investigated further in this
paper using both finite element and computational fluid dynamic modelling of the fluid structure
interaction of the operating conditions inside a gas turbine whilst the rotor blades are vibrating.

Computational fluid structure interaction studies of gas turbine flow and blade motion are usually
confined to investigations into blade flutter. Numerous computational and experimental studies into
blade flutter arising from the flow and blade structural motion in gas turbines have been made, such as
the investigation by Nowinski and Panovsky [5] where computational and experimental results of the
influence of adjacent blade pressure under forced flutter conditions (i.e. the blades were externally
forced to vibrate at their natural frequency) was investigated. This type of fluid-structure interaction
only considers the one-way interaction of the structural motion on the fluid. In fact it is still uncommon
to find many realistic two-way fluid structure computational studies for turbine blade-flow interaction.
Studies of this nature are generally undertaken with in-house software and investigations
implementing commercial multi-physics computational solvers are even more rare.
A computationally efficient harmonic balance computational analysis, using in-house software, of the
one-way fluid-structure interaction with turbine flow and rotor blade motion was investigated by Hall
and Ekici [6]. Once again the motion within this study was enforced on the computational fluid domain.
The effect that enforced blade motion due to the stator passing, i.e. forced at a harmonic of shaft
speed, was shown to have little effect on the time averaged pressure over the rotor blade surface. As
the pressure was time averaged, this does not necessarily mean that the pressure on the rotor blade
surface does not change with time, and thus must follow the blade motion, but the small changes in
the rotor blade pressure could tentatively lead to this conclusion.
Another previous experimental and computational investigation has proven successful in using gas
turbine pressure signals for determining changes in rotor blade geometry, e.g. blade twist faults [7][8].
Identification of pressure signal fault signatures for different geometric changes and relation of these
back to a given fault from the measured pressure, was undertaken in these studies. This work did not
however consider any blade vibration in the computational modelling.
A two dimensional two-way coupled finite element/computational fluid dynamic model of a rotor blade
undergoing forced stator passing vibration is investigated in this paper. Before the results of this
numerical study are discussed the forces driving the rotor blade motion in a gas turbine will first be
investigated.

2 Rotor blade vibration

As has already been stated, vibration of gas turbine blades is an inherent attribute of their use, and
measurement of the characteristics of this blade vibration is not new. Rotor vibration is driven by two
groups of forces, those being from stochastic processes in the fluid flow and from the periodic
traversing of high and low pressure regions from the preceding stator blade row. Shown in Figure 1 is
a general schematic of a gas turbine where the stator and rotor blade stage arrangement can be seen.
As the turbine engine rotates, rotor blade stages rotate around past stator blade stages such that the
blades cut or pass through the trailing wakes of the stator blades. This wake passing is illustrated in
Figure 2 with the plot of the velocity contours for three rotor and stator blade passages for three
different angular offsets during rotation. The forces on the rotor blades from this wake crossing are
periodic with stator blade passing frequency, spf , the oscillating rotor blade surface pressure at this
stator passing frequency is shown in Figure 8 in the results of this study. This is a typical result which
has been found in many experimental investigations, with a characteristic type result for rotor blade lift
coefficients versus angle of rotation is shown in Figure 3, taken from ref. [9].

Figure 1: Schematic of gas turbine, displayed is one rotor and stator blade stage without the external
casing.

Figure 2: Longitudinal velocity contours plotted for three rotor-stator blade passages at three different
angular offsets. Note the passing of the rotor blades through the trailing stator blade wakes

Figure 3: Unsteady aerodynamic lift coefficients calculated from measurements by pressure probes
located on rotor blades, for different blade rows and for different engine design points as shown. [9]

The driving force on the rth rotor blade may then be described mathematically as a sum of periodic
forces at multiples of shaft speed, being: [4]

f t r Ai cos i spf t r
i 0

2 s r 1
b

(1)

s r 1
round
2
b

(2)

where Ai are the Fourier coefficients, s is the number of stator blades and b the number of
rotor blades and

is phase offset between when each rotor blade aligns with a stator blade.

If the forces acting on the rotor blades are harmonic with stator pass frequency, then the motion of the
rotor blades will also be periodic with the same frequency as the driving forces. It has been shown that
if the pressure profile around the rotor blades follows the motion of the oscillating blade then
processing of this measured pressure signal could lead to a means of measuring blade vibration
information [2]. This interaction between the blade motion and the forces driving the motion is complex
and although the pressure profile around the moving blade will change with time, it is thought that it
will in general have the same profile and be steady with time as compared to the mean pressure. This
hypothesis that the rotor blade pressure profile follows the rotor blade motion will now be investigated
through numerical FEA and CFD modelling of a gas turbine with coupled fluid and blade vibration
interaction.

3 Computational Models
This study employs the computational modelling of the rotor blade fluid structure interaction and
examines how the rotor blade vibrations affect the pressure profile around the rotor blade. Within this
section the computational models and modelling procedure will be explained.
A fluid structure interaction model was developed using the FEA and CFD multi-physics environment
available in ANSYS 12.1 Workbench. The time transient model developed is coupled by first solving
the fluid domain until convergence is reached for the given boundary conditions at a given time step in
ANSYS CFX. The forces from the fluid domain at the fluid structure boundary, being the rotor blade
surface, are then passed to the ANSYS structural solver and the resulting displacement is calculated.
These resulting displacements are then passed back to the CFD solver, with this process continuing
until convergence between the boundary loads and displacements is achieved. The solver then moves
onto the next time step and the process is then repeated. 200 time steps per stator passing period
was also used in the model resulting in an RMS Courant number less than 1.

3.1 FEA
The finite element model was constructed to represent rotor blade vibration limited to a single
equivalent blade mode by attaching an essentially stiff aerofoil to a soft spring and limiting the motion
to a single direction as shown in Figure 4(a). Properties of the finite element model can be found in
Table 1.
Table 1: Structural domain properties
Property
Rotor blade natural frequency (bounce)
Stator passing frequency,

spf

Equivalent spring stiffness

Maximum blade displacement

Value
13360 Hz
5093 Hz
5000 N/m
0.2 mm

(b)

(a)

(c)

Figure 4: Computational mesh for the rotor blade structural domain, zoom around rotor blade tip, and
coupled fluid-structure domain respectively. The rotor blade vibration is restricted in the direction
shown in (a).

3.2 CFD
A pseudo two dimensional computational fluid dynamic model of a single rotor and stator blade
passage was constructed using ANSYS CFX. The domain is not a conventional two dimensional
model in the fact that a thin slice of a helical section of the fluid is modelled with a finite width in order
to satisfy the commercial CFD code boundary conditions. The fluid domain was constructed from
2.25x105 elements, with the mesh around the rotor blade leading edge shown in Figure 4(b). The
current number of elements is not sufficient to resolve some of the flow and will need to be increased
in further analysis.
Boundary conditions for the fluid domain are shown in Figure 5 and listed in Table 2. The aerofoil
profile is a NACA4506 with a chord length of 50mm. The flow angle of incidence over each blade was
made as close to 0 degrees as possible to give the most favourable flow conditions.
The fluid domain was also limited to a single stator and rotor blade passage as shown in Figure 5 to
reduce the computational domain, meaning that the underlying rotor to stator blade stage numbers
would be of an equal number. A more realistic ratio of stator to rotor stage blade numbers would be of
a non-integer number requiring the fluid domain to include as many passages as the lowest common
denominator of the rotor and stator blade numbers.
A first order backward Euler differencing scheme was used for the transient term with a SST
turbulence model employed for the advection terms in the Navier-Stokes equation. The solution was
assumed to have converged when the residuals of all equations had been reduced to 10-6 at each time
step.

Rotational periodicity

Rotational periodicity

Fluid-structure boundary

Inlet

Rotational periodicity

Outlet

Figure 5: Fluid domain schematic with boundary conditions shown

Table 2: Fluid domain boundary conditions

Boundary

Condition
Vu = 89 m/s
Vv = 122 m/s
Average static pressure = 0
Free slip wall
Free slip wall
Stationary no slip wall
Rotating no slip wall, 100 rad/s

Inlet
Outlet
Casing surface
Hub surface
Stator blade
Rotor blade

4 Results/Discussion
Results from two computational models, one without any fluid-structure coupling i.e. the rotor blade
rotates but is not permitted to vibrate, and a second where the complete two way fluid-structure
interaction is present are investigated and reported below.
The pressure in the fluid domain is interrogated at various locations, as shown in Figure 6, being
across the rotor blade surface, the variation of the pressure with time at four specific locations and the
changes in pressure across a vertical plane.

(4)

Vertical Plane 1

(3)
(2)

(1)

Figure 6: Pressure measurement locations on rotor blade. Four pressure tapping locations and
vertical plane.

x 10

Pressure (Pa)

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0

Suction side uncoupled

Pressure side uncoupled
Suction side coupled
Pressure side coupled
0.2

0.4
0.6
0.8
Normalised distance from TE x/c

Figure 7: Surface pressure on rotor blade for both the coupled and uncoupled case averaged over
two stator passing periods
Shown in Figure 7 is the time averaged pressure over the rotor blade surface for both the coupled and
uncoupled case, averaged over two stator passing periods after reaching a quasi-steady solution. The
difference in pressure can be seen to be minimal and that the same pressure distribution shape is
observed for when blade vibration is both present and absent. This small change in the time averaged
surface pressure on the rotor blade with and without blade motion was also observed by Hall and Ekici
[6].
Although the time averaged pressure shows little change between the coupled and uncoupled case, it
does not describe how the pressure varies with time, and whether this variation is different between
the two cases, i.e. does the pressure profile around the rotor blade follow the blades motion?
To examine the change in pressure with time four pressure tappings will be observed over two stator
passing periods, the normalised absolute pressure at these four pressure tapping locations for the
uncoupled case is shown in Figure 8(a). It is observed in this figure, that the pressure on the rotor
blade is periodic with stator passing frequency with a variation of approximately less than 10% over
the period for the four locations. This variation with pressure is what causes the oscillating forces on
the blade and thus drives blade motion. The same corresponding pressure tapping locations for the
coupled case are shown in Figure 8(b). Again the periodic pressure fluctuation pattern can be
observed as in the uncoupled case for all locations. The pressure locations 1 and 4 are significantly
less smooth in the coupled case when compared with the uncoupled case. From observation of the
velocity contours of the coupled case the rotor blade trailing edge suffers from some wake separation
which is most likely the cause of the less comparable results for location 1. Increasing of the mesh
density should also provide a smoother pressure profile around the leading edge which can been seen
to affect the pressure distribution on the pressure side of the leading edge in Figure 7, which would
also affect the stability of the pressure measurements at the tapping location 4.
The displacement of the rotor blade over two periods is shown in Figure 9(b). It is clear that the
displacement is periodic with stator passing frequency. It may be noted however that the minimum
displacement is not the same for both periods shown. From observations of previous periods, this
difference is reducing for each cycle, and should be removed if the computations are continued over
further cycles. The time averaged pressure over two cycles along the vertical plane, c.f. Figure 6, is
also shown in Figure 9(a), the maximum and minimum pressures for this two cycle period are shown
in addition, with only minor variations in this pressure distribution with time.

Finally a comparison of the change in pressure over time for both cases is shown in Figure 10,
although there are differences in the magnitude of the pressure for the two cases, the general trend of
the pressure takes the same form.
1.02
1

(a)

(b)
normalised absolute pressure

normalised absolute pressure

0.95

0.98
0.96
0.94
0.92
location 1
location 2
location 3
location 4

0.9
0.88
0

0.5

1
stator passing period

0.9

0.85

location 1
location 2
location 3
location 4

0.8

1.5

0.75
0

0.5

1
stator passing period

1.5

Figure 8: Instantaneous pressure at the 4 pressure tapping locations on the rotor blade surface. (a)
uncoupled case. (b) coupled case.
0.21

time ave
max
min

(a)

0.6

(b)

0.215

rotor blade displacement (mm)

normalised distance from aerofoil surface

1
0.8

0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6

0.22

0.225

0.23

0.235

0.8
1
15000

10000

5000

0.24

pressure (Pa)

0.5

1
stator passing period

1.5

Figure 9: (a) Pressure distribution along vertical plane 1, c.f. Figure 6, for the coupled case. Plotted
are the max, min and time averaged values over two stator passing periods. (b) Rotor blade
displacement for the coupled case over two stator passing periods.
4

2.75

x 10

uncoupled
coupled
2.8

pressure (Pa)

2.85

2.9

2.95

3.05

3.1

0.5

1
stator passing period

1.5

Figure 10: Comparison for the coupled and uncoupled case of pressure tapping at location 3 on the
rotor blade over two stator passing periods

5 Conclusions
Reported in this paper are the results of a computational study into the changes in the pressure
around a gas turbine rotor blade whist it is vibrating. A two-way coupled finite element and
computational fluid dynamic model was constructed using the commercial ANSYS Workbench
software. Results for this fully coupled model were compared against the pressure distribution results
for a CFD model of the same system without blade vibration being present.
It was observed that the time averaged pressure along the rotor blade surface does not vary
significantly between the uncoupled and coupled case, with both models displaying the same pressure
distribution profile. Examination of changes in the pressure at four locations across the blade surface
with time, showed that both the uncoupled and coupled models produced similar pressure changes
which are harmonic with the stator passing frequency, driving blade motion at this frequency.
The blade motion amplitude in two-way coupled model was reasonably small at 0.4% of the interblade spacing distance, and as such the change in pressure between the cases would be assumed to
be negligible. It can be tentatively concluded from these results that the rotor blade pressure profile
follows the blade motion. Before this conclusion can be made with more certainty, longer computation
time is required to obtain complete convergence to the quasi-steady solution at the same time as
increasing the CFD mesh density so that all flow effects can be resolved and the effects of the larger
blade motion amplitudes need to be investigated.

Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgment is made for the financial assistance given by the Australian Defence
Science and Technology Organisation, through the Centre of Expertise in Helicopter Structures and
Diagnostics at UNSW.

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