Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2019), 32(12): 2667–2678

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com

Experimental investigation on dynamic response

of flat blades with underplatform dampers
Dayi ZHANG a,b, Bin GAO a, Jie HONG a,c,*, Jianwei FU a, Xiangyun GE a

a
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
b
Beijing Key Laboratory of Aero-Engine Structure and Strength, Beijing 100083, China
c
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Aero-Engine, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China

Received 29 September 2018; revised 24 December 2018; accepted 2 January 2019

Available online 30 May 2019

KEYWORDS Abstract One test rig with three blades and two Under-Platform Dampers (UPDs) is established
Effective contact area; to better understand the dynamical behavior of blades with UPDs. A pre-loaded spring is used to
Forced response; simulate the centrifugal load acting on the damper, thereby achieving continuous adjustment of the
Friction; pressing load. UPDs with different forms, sizes and materials are carefully designed as experimental
Test rig; control groups. Noncontact measurement via a laser Doppler velocimeter is employed and contact
Turbo machinery; excitation which is performed by an electromagnetic exciter is adopted to directly obtain the mag-
Underplatform dampers nitude of the excitation load by a force sensor mounted on the excitation rod. Particular attention is
paid to the influence of the contact status of the contact surfaces, e.g. the pressure-sensitive paper is
used to measure the effective contact area of the UPDs. The experimental variables are selected as
the centrifugal force, the amplitude of the excitation force, the damper mass, the effective contact
area, and the damper material. The Frequency Response Function (FRF) of the blade under differ-
ent experimental parameters is obtained by slow frequency sweep under sinusoidal excitation to
study the influence of each parameter on the dynamic characteristics of the blade and the mecha-
nism analysis is carried out combined with the experimental results.
Ó 2019 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

The suppression of blade vibration is an important issue in the

* Corresponding author at: School of Energy and Power Engineer-
design of aero-engines. In order to mitigate the harmful vibra-
tion, dry-friction damping, as an efficient damping technology,
ing, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China.
E-mail address: Hongjie_BUAA@126.com (J. HONG).
is now widely used in the vibration reduction of the blade,
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
including various structural forms such as shroud, underplat-
form damper, dovetail-groove, etc.,1–8 among which the
Under-Platform Damper (UPD) is widely used in fans and tur-
bine blades because it does not affect the airfoil nor airflow
Production and hosting by Elsevier passages, and its additional centrifugal load is relatively slight.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.04.022
1000-9361 Ó 2019 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
2668
Many scholars are committed to the study of the dynamic
characteristics of the blade with UPDs. Petrov9 developed a
method for calculating directly resonance frequency and reso-
nance amplitude of the nonlinear vibration of bladed disks
based on multiple harmonic balance method; Zhang et al.10
developed a numerical method for calculating the steady-
state vibration response of blades with multi scattered friction
contacts; Panning et al.11 analyzed the influence of damper
mass and contact geometry on the energy dissipation based
on numerical results, which provides a basis for the optimiza-
tion of UPD. In order to further study the damper-blade inter-
action and verify the accuracy of the proposed numerical
method, many experimental researches are also carried out
at the same time. The most common experimental setup is a
structure in which a single damper is placed between two
blades and pulled by dead weight through wires simulating
the centrifugal force.12–16 Sanliturk et al.17 measured the
dynamic response of the test rig comprising two blades as well
as one damper and compared it with the numerical results. The
research shows that UPDs are prone to rolling motion, which
reduces the damping effect usually in the lower nodal diameter
bladed-disk modes. Bessone et al.18 studied the effects of dif-
ferent damper centrifugal pressing forces on the damping effect
by using a test rig consisting of two turbine blades of huge
dimensions that are normally in service and an asymmetric
UPD. His work highlighted the contribution to the system
damping due to the friction at the root of the blade compared
to the damping introduced by the UPD. A more complex
experimental device consists of an integral bladed disk fitted
with UPDs. Berruti et al.19 used a static bladed disk excited
with noncontact traveling wave generated by electromagnets
placed under each blade to study the damper behavior at dif-
ferent nodal diameters of the disk. Dampers were loaded with
dead weights as well. Sever et al.20 designed a rotating test rig
to simulate the centrifugal load of the blade and the damper in
a more realistic way. The excitation force was simulated by
employing a permanent magnet fixed to the rig. In this case,
however, experimental results can be affected by possible pres-
ence of mistuning.21,22 In recent years, some scholars have
been working on damper kinematics and micromechanics,
for a better understanding of the dynamics of the damper in
depth.23,24 In their experiments, forces exchanged between
the platform and damper contact surfaces and the kinematics
in terms of damper/platform relative displacement were mea-
sured. Namely for each point on Frequency Response Func-
tion (FRF), the corresponding hysteresis at the contacts,
force equilibrium and platform kinematics can be recon-
structed. Gola et al.25 found that the damper exhibited a vari-
ety of different behavior under the same input condition, and
the damper-platform system always converges to the solution
with the lowest hysteresis area.
The experimental researches that have been carried out can
still be further improved in the following aspects:
(1) The common experimental setup is one damper placed
between two blades. However, the vibration characteris-
tics of a single blade in actual operating condition are
obviously affected by two dampers. Therefore, it can
be interesting to build a test rig consisting of three blades
and two dampers, which is more consistent with the real
conditions intuitively, and then we can focus on the
dynamic characteristics of the middle blade in the test.
D. ZHANG et al.
Simultaneously, this approach avoids the cumbersome
tuning process when using a rotating test rig with inte-
gral bladed disk due to possible presence of mistuning.
(2) In aero-engine applications, the UPD is very small. One
UPD weights from 0.8 g to 1.5 g in some cases, and
therefore the contact status between the damper and
the platform is always complicated due to the flexibility
of UPD, machining errors, rotation speed, operation
temperature, etc. The influence of the contact status of
contact surfaces is considered insufficiently in related
experimental researches. However, the vibration charac-
teristics of the blade is directly influenced by the change
of contact status. Therefore, it is significative to pay par-
ticular attention to the test of the contact status (typi-
cally such as the effective contact area).
(3) There is still a need for systematic and comprehensive
research on the influence of key damper structural
parameters on blade dynamic characteristics from the
perspective of damper design. In this paper (in Sec-
tion 3.1 below), the parameters of the blade-damper sys-
tem are divided into three categories: damper structural
design parameters, contact surface parameters and blade
dynamic parameters. While focusing on the structure
design of the UPDs, the experiment is arranged to reveal
the interaction between these three types of parameters
and to obtain principles of structural optimization of
the UPDs in engineering practice.
2. Test rig for blades with UDPs
The overall scheme of the test rig for the blades with UPDs is
shown in Fig. 1. The experimental device mainly consists of
blades and their installation base, UPDs and their loading sys-
tem, excitation system and measurement system. During the
experiment, the middle blade is excited by an electromagnetic
exciter and the vibration response of the blade is obtained
using Polytec laser Doppler vibrometer. The effective contact
area of the contact surfaces between platforms and UPDs is
measured by the pressure-sensitive paper. The main compo-
nents of the test rig are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 1 Overall schematic diagram of test rig.
Experimental investigation on dynamic response of flat blades
Fig. 2 Main components of test rig.
2.1. Blade specimen and installation
The test rig adopts a structural scheme including three blades
and two dampers. Dampers are installed on both sides of the
middle blade, which is required to be directly excited and mea-
sured during the test. To facilitate the excitation and measure-
ment of the middle blade, only the dovetail and platform parts
of the blades on both ends are retained, as shown in Fig. 3(a).
The dimensions of the flat blade are given in Fig. 3(b). In order
to simulate the centrifugal load of the blades in rotating con-
dition, threaded holes are opened under the groove of the
blade installation base, through which each pair of the dovetail
and the groove is tightened by two bolts, providing a maxi-
mum pressing force of 30000 N.
2.2. Loading assembly and damper specimen
2.2.1. Loading assembly of centrifugal load
In order to achieve continuous adjustment of the damper
pressing force, and avoid the effects of additional friction
between the pulley block and the ropes when the damper is
pulled by dead weight, in this experiment the pre-loaded spring
is used to simulate the centrifugal load that the damper is sub-
jected to. The lower end of the spring is connected to the dam-
per through a wire, and the upper end is connected to a height-
adjustable bearing beam. The pressing force of the damper can
Fig. 3 Blade specimen and installation.
2669
Fig. 4 Loading assembly of UPDs.
be continuously adjusted by changing the height of the bearing
beam to adjust the spring elongation, as shown in Fig. 4.
2.2.2. Damper specimens
The typical structures of UPDs can be divided into the sheet
type, the prismatic type, the spring type and the box
type,17,26–30 as shown in Fig. 5.31 The UPD of the sheet type
is lighter in weight, generally around 1.0 g, which means few
additional centrifugal load of the damper, yet less friction
and pressing force. Moreover, additional mounting structure
for damper installation is required under adjacent platforms
of the blades. The UPD of the prismatic type can be designed
for a larger mass, consequently providing greater dry friction
damping and pressing force. In addition, both the upper sur-
face and the side surface of the damper can generate frictional
energy dissipation. This kind of UPD is commonly used for the
vibration reduction of the blade of large size in ground-based
gas turbines. The UPDs of the spring type and the box type are
of moderate mass and fitted by pre-compression self-
deformation. In the structure design, it is necessary to ensure
a satisfactory contact status at the rotation speed for the last
two kinds to keep the damping effect stable.
This experimental research only focuses on the UPD of the
sheet type. The vibration characteristics of sheet dampers with
different structural forms or materials are tested. The length
Fig. 5 Typical UPDs in aero-engine.31
2670 D. ZHANG et al.

2.3. Excitation system

Fig. 6 Damper dimensions (front view).
and width of each tested damper, the position and diameter of
the openings are the same, as shown in Fig. 6. The serial num-
ber of the damper and its cross section parameter are given in
Table 1.
There are two ways for exciting the blade: contact and non-
contact. The advantage of non-contact excitation is that the
excitation system is physically isolated from the blade, avoid-
ing the mechanic influence (additional mass, stiffness and
damping) of the excitation system on the vibration character-
istics of the blade. However, the magnitude of the exciting
force cannot be directly measured by the way of non-contact
excitation. In this study, contact excitation which is performed
by an electromagnetic exciter is adopted to directly obtain the
magnitude of the excitation load by the force sensor mounted
on the excitation rod.
The interaction between the excitation rod and the excited
blade during the experiment would affect the inherent charac-
teristics of the blade through exerting additional stiffness and

Table 1 Serial number and parameters of damper.

Serial number Material Mass (g) Picture Damper dimensions (mm) (left view) Contact surface

1# Steel 11.05 Flat surface

2# Steel 26.56 Flat surface

3# Aluminum 3.86 Flat surface

4# Aluminum 8.51 Flat surface

5# Steel 17.28 Cambered surface

6# Steel 14.19 Cambered surface

Experimental investigation on dynamic response of flat blades
Fig. 7 Overall layout of test rig.
damping effects on the blade. In order to reduce this effect, the
excitation position of the excitation rod is selected in the vicin-
ity of the nodal line near the blade root during the experiment.
In addition, in order to reduce the vibration coupling between
the excitation system and the blade, and ensure that the elec-
tromagnetic exciter provides a stable sinusoidal excitation
force in the low frequency range, the vibration exciter is inde-
pendently mounted on the test bench, as shown in Fig. 7.
2.4. Measurement system
2.4.1. Measurement of effective contact area
In the research on damping mechanism and numerical analysis
of the UPD, it is generally considered that the friction surface
between the damper and the platform is in complete con-
tact.17,32,33 However, in actual applications, the effective con-
tact area between the damper and the platform is limited due
to structure deformation caused by centrifugal force and
machining errors. It is more necessary to pay attention to
the effective contact area for the damper with a cambered con-
tact surface. In order to measure the effective contact area, a
pressure sensitive paper is placed between the damper and
the platform, and the effective contact area of the two is
obtained according to the color distribution of the paper under
different pressing forces. The area in the pressure sensitive
paper would turn red where the pressure exceeds the threshold
of the paper.
Fig. 8 Relationship among damper structural design parameters, contact surface parameters and blade dynamic parameters.
2671
Fujifilm prescal ultra-low pressure test paper and low pres-
sure test paper are selected in the experiment. The threshold
values of these two types of pressure sensitive papers are
0.5 MPa and 10 MPa respectively, of which the error does
not exceed ±10%.
2.4.2. Measurement of vibration response
The Polytec full-field scanning laser test system is used to mea-
sure the vibration velocity and displacement of the key points
of the blade. One focused aspect is the influence of the damper
on the first-order natural frequency and resonant response of
the blade, considering the additional stiffness and damping
effects on the blade from the UPD.
3. Experimental method
3.1. Experimental variables
The parameters of the blade-damper system can be classified as
damper structural design parameters, contact surface parame-
ters and blade dynamic parameters, as shown in Fig. 8. The
damper structural design parameters are directly oriented to
the engineering design of the damper; the contact surface
parameters comprehensively describe the contact status and
mechanical properties of the contact surface on a mesoscopic
scale; the blade dynamic parameters are physical quantities
that describe the inherent characteristics of the blade vibration
and the damping effect of the damper on a macro scale. The
damper structural design parameters and engine working con-
ditions (temperature, rotating speed, aerodynamic excitation,
etc.) together determine the contact surface parameters. The
contact surface parameters directly determine the contact fric-
tion, which can directly cause changes in the vibration charac-
teristics of the blade, namely the blade dynamic parameters.
This research focuses on the influence of the damper struc-
tural design parameters and contact surface parameters on the
blade dynamic parameters. The vibration response of the blade
under different experimental parameters is measured, and the
mechanism analysis is carried out combined with the experi-
mental results.
The structural and geometric parameters of the damper
determine its mass and stiffness distribution. Under the cen-
trifugal load, the damper is elastically deformed and pressed
under the platform. The centrifugal force of the damper is
determined by the combination of mass and rotating speed.
2672 D. ZHANG et al.

The contact form between the UPD and the platform is state vibration of the blade. If the sweep rate is too fast, the
surface-to-surface contact, which has a large contact area. wrong FRF may be obtained. Fig. 10 shows the velocity ampli-
The contact pressure distribution and effective contact area tude curves of the blade vibration at different sweep rates for a
are mainly affected by external load and contact surface geom- certain experimental parameter. It can be found that the
etry. Under aerodynamic excitation, the damper and the plat- obtained velocity amplitude curves are basically coincident
form move relative to each other. The relative displacement with a sweep rate lower than 2.5 Hz/s. Therefore, the vibration
between the contact surfaces is mainly determined by the mass amplitude at each frequency obtained by the frequency sweep
of the damper, the centrifugal force, the amplitude of the exci- can be regarded as the amplitude of the steady-state vibration
tation force and the friction coefficient. At the same time, the of the blade when the sweep rate is lower than 2.5 Hz/s. Since
damper mass, the friction coefficient and the contact stiffness only the vibration near the first-order bending frequency of the
are all affected by the damper material. blade is concerned, the sweep frequency selected in this exper-
It can be seen that the damper structure design parameters iment ranges from 45 Hz to 90 Hz, the total sweep time is
and the contact surface parameters have coupling effects on 100 s, and the sweep rate is 0.45 Hz/s.
the blade dynamic parameters. Thus, the variable-controlling
approach is adopted to study the influence of single parameter 4. Results and discussion
on the dynamic characteristics of the blade, and the experimen-
tal variables are selected as the centrifugal force, the amplitude 4.1. Influence of centrifugal force
of the excitation force, the damper mass, the effective contact
area, and the damper material.
The FRF curves of the blade with 2#UPD under different cen-
trifugal forces (Fc) obtained by the experiment are shown in
3.2. Experimental procedure
Fig. 11.
It can be seen that the UPD has additional stiffness and
In the experiment, the FRF of the blade in a certain frequency damping effect on the blade. The first-order resonant fre-
range is obtained by slow frequency sweep under the sinu- quency and resonant response of the blade are changed under
soidal excitation. During the sweeping process, the input volt- different centrifugal forces, as shown in Fig. 12.
age of the electromagnetic exciter is kept constant. Due to the As the centrifugal force of the damper increases, the first-
characteristics of the exciter, the magnitude of the output exci- order resonant frequency of the blade rises and tends to be
tation force changes with the excitation frequency. Thus, the constant. When the centrifugal force reaches 340 N, the first-
blade vibration response measured is not under constant exci-
tation force because of the limitations of the equipment. In
order to obtain the FRF, firstly, the response amplitude of
the blade is divided by the amplitude of the excitation force
at the same frequency, obtaining the response amplitude under
unit force at this frequency, and then, the points of the
response amplitude under unit force at different frequencies
are connected to obtain the FRF curve. The FRF curve of
5#UPDs with cambered contact surfaces under a spring pre-
load of 20 N is shown in Fig. 9. Since the spring preload and
the effective contact area between the damper and the platform
is quite small, neither the additional stiffness nor the damping
caused by the damper contributes much, the system is close to
one linear system without UPD.
The vibration amplitude at each frequency obtained by the
frequency sweep deviates from the amplitude of the steady- Fig. 10 FRF curves at different sweep rates.

Fig. 9 FRF curve of blade with 5#UPD under a spring preload Fig. 11 FRF curves of blade with 2#UPD under different
of 20 N. centrifugal forces.
Experimental investigation on dynamic response of flat blades
Fig. 12 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with
2#UPDs under different centrifugal loads.
order resonant frequency increases by 10%. Therefore, the
influence of the UPD on the blade resonance margin must
be considered in engineering design. The first-order resonant
frequency of the blade increases as the centrifugal force
increases, for the increased force causes larger additional stiff-
ness generated by the damper. When the centrifugal force
exceeds a certain threshold, the contact surface enters a fully
stuck state, and simultaneously the additional stiffness of the
damper reaches a maximum value, so the first-order resonant
frequency of the blade tends to be a constant value.
As the centrifugal force of the damper increases, the reso-
nant response of the blade decreases first and then increases.
There exists an optimal value of centrifugal force that has
the biggest effect on suppressing the vibration of the blade.
It can be defined that the centrifugal force that minimizes
the resonant response of the blade is the optimal centrifugal
force in this condition (the optimal centrifugal force under
the experimental parameter in Fig. 12 is about 100 N). When
the centrifugal force of the damper is relatively small, the blade
and the platform are mainly in the slip contact status. The fric-
tion force increases as the centrifugal force increases, and thus
the dissipating effect of the damper increases so that the reso-
nant response of the blade decreases. When the centrifugal
force of the damper grows greater than the optimal centrifugal
force, as the centrifugal force increases, the contact status
gradually changes to a mainly stuck state, and the energy dis-
sipation of the damper decreases so that the damping effect
becomes worse.
The experimental results show that for the blade with other
UPDs tested, the vibration response characteristics of the
blade are similar to the above results when the centrifugal
force changes.
4.2. Influence of amplitude of excitation force
Under different amplitudes of the excitation force, the changes
of the first-order resonant frequency and resonance response
of the blade with the centrifugal force obtained by the experi-
ment are shown in Fig. 13, where the amplitudes of the excita-
tion force (Fe) are sorted as Fe5 > Fe4 > Fe3 > Fe2 > Fe1.
2673
Fig. 13 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with
2#UPDs under different amplitudes of excitation force.
It can be seen from Fig. 13(a) that under the same centrifu-
gal force, the smaller the amplitude of the excitation force is,
the higher the first-order resonant frequency of the blade is,
which is more prominent in the case of a small centrifugal
force. Since the vibration amplitude of the platform decreases
as the amplitude of the excitation force decreases, the propor-
tion of the slip contact status in one period of vibration
decreases. Thus, the equivalent stiffness34 of the friction
increases so that the first-order resonant frequency of the blade
increases.
It can be seen from Fig. 13(b) that as the magnitude of the
excitation force increases, the damper can provide excellent
damping effect over a wider range of centrifugal forces, that
is, only under large vibration amplitudes can the damper work
effectively. It also means that if the stiffness of the blade root
extending section is too strong, or the cascade solidity is too
high, the vibration amplitude of the platform could be so small
that the damper is difficult to exert its effect. This is because
when the vibration amplitude of the platform is large, the con-
tact status between the blade and the platform is maintained as
mainly slip state in one period of vibration over a wide range
of centrifugal forces so that the damper can achieve an excel-
lent damping effect.
The experimental results show that for the blade with other
UPDs tested, the vibration response characteristics of the
blade are similar to the above results when the amplitude of
the excitation force changes.
During the experiment, the magnitude of the excitation
force changes with the excitation frequency due to the limita-
2674
tion of the electromagnetic exciting system. The magnitude of
the excitation force becomes smaller near resonant frequencies
compared to that far from resonance. On the one hand, under
the conditions of quite small spring preload, the damper’s
effects of additional stiffness and damping on the blade are
not significant. The system under this circumstance is close
to one linear system without UPD. When it comes to the con-
ditions of fairly large spring preload, the contact status
between the blade and the platform is maintained as stuck
state during vibration. Thus, the UPDs act as an elastic con-
nection between adjacent blades and the system turns to be
close to a linear system again. Therefore, the non-constant
excitation force has little impact on the upper and lower limits
of the system resonant frequency in Fig. 13(a). On the other
hand, as the magnitude of the excitation force becomes smaller
near resonant frequencies compared to the cases of constant
excitation force, from Fig. 13(b), when a large spring preload
is applied, the resonant amplitude under unit force obtained
from the experiment would be larger than that of constant
excitation force. Thus, the non-constant excitation force leads
to a conservative evaluation on the damping effect of UPD.
When it comes to the condition of a relatively slight spring pre-
load, the conclusion, however, is opposite. Therefore, the non-
constant excitation force causes the deviation in the evaluation
of the damping effect during tests.
4.3. Influence of damper mass
The 3# and 4# dampers have different mass, which are both
made of aluminum, identical in the size of contact surface
and different only in thickness. Fitted with dampers of differ-
ent mass, the changes of the first-order resonant frequency and
resonance response of the blade with the centrifugal force
obtained by the experiments are shown in Fig. 14.
Fig. 14(a) and (b) indicate that under the same centrifugal
force and amplitude of the excitation force, the first-order fre-
quency of the blade increases as the mass of the damper
decreases. This is because the smaller the mass of the damper
is, the easier it is for the damper to move with the platform,
and thus the proportion of the stuck contact status over one
cycle of motion increases, so that the equivalent stiffness of
Fig. 14 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with dampers of different mass.
D. ZHANG et al.
the friction increases and the resonant frequency of the blade
increases.
Fig. 14(c) and (d) indicates that when the mass of the dam-
per is increased, the range of the optimum centrifugal force is
broadened. The centrifugal force of the damper is determined
by its mass and the rotating speed, among which the rotating
speed of the aero-engine is generally determined. In actual
practice, we prefer to adjust the damper mass to make the cen-
trifugal force in operating state as close as possible to the opti-
mal centrifugal force, but this is hard to realize. In this case,
the mass of the damper can be increased appropriately to
ensure that the damper has a considerable damping effect over
a wider range of centrifugal force.
The experimental results show that for the 1# and 2# dam-
pers, the vibration response characteristics of the blade with
dampers of different mass are similar to the above.
4.4. Influence of effective contact area
The contact pressure distribution of the 1#, 5#, and 6# dam-
pers measured by the pressure sensitive paper at the centrifugal
force of 200 N is shown in Fig. 15. When the contact surface of
the damper is flat (as 1# damper), the contact surface between
the platform and the damper fits well, so the contact pressure
distribution is uniform and there is no obvious contact pres-
sure concentration area, and thus the effective contact area
Fig. 15 Contact pressure distribution of dampers with different
configurations.
Experimental investigation on dynamic response of flat blades
Fig. 16 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with dampers of different effective contact areas.
Fig. 17 Relationship between friction and displacement from
microslip model with different effective contact areas.35
between the damper and platform is large, as shown in Fig. 15
(a). When the contact surface of the damper is cambered (as 5#
and 6# dampers), only the middle portion of the damper is in
contact with the edge of the platform, so the contact area is
small and a significant contact pressure concentration area is
generated on the contact surface, as shown in Fig. 15(b). The
face-to-face contact gradually degenerates into a line-to-line
contact as the curvature of the cambered surface increases,
as shown in Fig. 15(c).
Under three different effective contact areas, the changes of
the first-order resonant frequency and resonance response of
the blade with the centrifugal force obtained by the experiment
are shown in Fig. 16.
From Fig. 16(a), it is found that the first-order resonant fre-
quency of the 1# damper with a larger effective contact area is
higher than the 5# and 6# dampers with a smaller effective
2675
contact area. Fig. 17(a) shows the friction-displacement (f-x)
curve with different effective contact areas but the same cen-
trifugal pressing force according to Iwan’s parallel-series
model.35 The larger the effective contact area of the damper
is, the greater the tangential contact stiffness of the contact
surface is, and thus the resonant frequency of the blade
increases.
From Fig. 16(b), it is found that the resonance response
gets greater with smaller effective contact area under the same
centrifugal force. Considering a small effective contact area, on
the one hand, it is not conducive to the energy dissipation
through distributed friction damping; on the other hand, for
the contact pressure concentration area, the proportion of
the stuck contact status in one period of vibration increases,
so the equivalent damping36 of the friction decreases. Fig. 17
(b) shows the hysteresis loops with different effective contact
areas but the same centrifugal pressing force according to
Iwan’s parallel-series model.35 It is obvious that the hysteresis
loop area is significantly reduced with less effective contact
area when the relative displacement amplitude between the
damper and the platform is the same. Therefore, in practical
engineering, the effective contact area of the damper is
required to be as large as possible to improve the damping
effect.
4.5. Influence of damper material
The 2# and 4# dampers are identical in geometry but different
in material. Fitted with dampers of different materials, the
changes of the first-order resonant frequency and resonance
response of the blade with the centrifugal force obtained by
the experiment are shown in Fig. 18.
The material mainly affects the mass of the damper and the
friction coefficient of the contact surface. The density of alu-
minum is about 1/3 of the density of steel, so the mass of the
aluminum damper is about 1/3 of the mass of the steel damper.
The friction coefficient between the aluminum damper and the
platform is about 0.3, while that between the steel damper and
the platform is about 0.2.
2676 D. ZHANG et al.

Fig. 18 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with dampers of different materials.

Under the same conditions, the smaller the mass of the as Fig. 19, and the experimental results are shown in Fig. 13,
damper is, the easier it is to move with the platform, the where the amplitudes of the excitation force (Fe) are sorted
greater the equivalent stiffness of the friction force is; as Fe5 > Fe4 > Fe3 > Fe2 > Fe1.
the larger the friction coefficient of the contact surface is, the The numerical results are basically coherent with the
greater the equivalent stiffness of the friction force is. It can experiment. As the amplitude of the excitation force
be seen from Fig. 18(a) that under the combined effect of the
damper mass and the friction coefficient, the resonant fre-
quency of the blade with the aluminum damper is larger, which
is more obvious in the range of small centrifugal force.
Under the same conditions, a smaller damper mass is not
conducive to the relative movement between the damper and
the platform, nor the friction energy dissipation; a greater fric-
tion coefficient of the contact surface has benefits to the fric-
tion damping in the microslip region. It can be seen from
Fig. 18(b) that under the condition of small centrifugal force,
the resonant response of the blade with the steel damper is
smaller, and at this time the relative displacement between
the steel damper which has a larger mass and the platform is
larger; under the condition of large centrifugal force, the reso-
nant response of the blade with the aluminum damper is smal-
ler, and at this time the friction energy dissipation in the
microslip region of the aluminum damper which has a larger
friction coefficient is larger.
From the above analysis, it is found that when multiple
parameters of the damper change simultaneously, the damping
effect of the damper is difficult to quantitatively evaluate under
the combined effect of multiple parameters. Therefore, it is
necessary to develop a numerical simulation method to predict
the nonlinear dynamic response of blades with multi scattered
dry friction contacts, which is of great significance for the
design and optimization of the UPD.

4.6. Comparison of experimental results and numerical

simulation results

The numerical simulation method developed in Ref.10 is used

here to calculate the response. By giving different amplitudes Fig. 19 First-order resonance characteristics of blade with
of the excitation force, the first-order resonant frequency and 2#UPDs under different amplitudes of excitation force, obtained
resonance response of the blade with 2# damper are obtained by numerical simulation.
Experimental investigation on dynamic response of flat blades
increases, the first-order resonant frequency of the blade
under the same centrifugal force decreases, while the optimal
centrifugal force of the damper increases. The difference
between the simulation and the experiment result is mainly
caused by the simplified contact model adopted in calcula-
tion. The damper is modelled as a spring in series with a
Coulomb friction and the contact stiffness along both perpen-
dicular and tangential directions are set as constants in such a
large range of spring preload tested in the experiments. The
contact stiffness during calculation is adjusted to be a rela-
tively large value, in order to match the resonant frequency
of the experimental results under large centrifugal forces.
Therefore, when the centrifugal force decreases, the contact
status between the platform and the UPD would undergo a
rapid shift from sticking to slipping in the simulation, which
leads to the sudden drops of the curves in Fig. 19. But in
reality, as the spring preload and the contact status change
greatly, the contact stiffness between the platform and the
UPD changes along with them, which is not considered in
the simulation. A more complex and realistic friction model
is required to improve the simulation accuracy.
5. Conclusions
The test rig with three blades and two UPDs established in this
paper is convenient and effective to test the dynamic character-
istics of the blades-dampers system. The experimental method
adopted is valid in controlling the variables to obtain the influ-
ence of each key design parameter of the UPD on the system
response.
The results show that the first-order resonant frequency of
the blade increases with the increase of centrifugal force act-
ing on the UPD, and the increasement can reach 10%; an
optimal value of centrifugal force exists, which has the big-
gest effect on suppressing the vibration of the blade; the
range of optimal centrifugal force is broadened by the
increase of the mass of UPD; a larger amplitude of the plat-
form vibration brings a wider range of the centrifugal force
under which the UPD can effectively suppress the vibration;
UPDs made of a material with a bigger coefficient of friction
promote the energy dissipation of micro-slip region on the
contact surfaces under the condition of large centrifugal
force; the robustness of the damping effect of the UPD can
be improved by increasing the uniformity of the contact pres-
sure on the contact surfaces.
This paper focuses on the influence rules obtained by exper-
iments, and the following investigation will concentrate on
how to introduce one more precise friction model to improve
the simulation accuracy and the solution efficiency as well.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank for the financial support from
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.
11772022, 91860205 and 51475021), and the experimental
devices provided by Key Laboratory of Vibration and Control
of Aero-Propulsion System, Ministry of Education, Northeast-
ern University (VCAME201602). Special thanks to ZHANG
Qicheng and DOU Yifei for their helpful advices on the paper
writing.
2677
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