High cycle fatigue (HCF) failure has been studied extensively over the last two decades. Its impact on jet engines is severe enough that may result in engine losses and even life losses. The main requirement for fatigue life predictions is the stress caused by mechanical vibrations. One of the factors which have major impact on the vibratory stresses of bladed disk assemblies is a phenomenon called &ldquo / mistuning&rdquo / which is defined as the vibration localization caused by the loss of cyclic periodicity which is a consequence of inter&amp / #8208 / blade variations in structural properties. In this thesis, component mode synthesis method (CMSM) is combined with nonlinear forced response analysis in modal domain. Newton&amp / #8208 / Raphson and arc length continuation procedures are implemented for the solution. The component mode synthesis method introduces the capability of imposing mistuning on the modal properties of each blade in the assembly. Forced response analysis in modal domain reduces the problem size via mode truncation. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it is capable of calculating nonlinear forced response for all the degrees&amp / #8208 / of&amp / #8208 / freedom at each blade with less computational effort. This makes it possible to make a stress analysis at resonance conditions. The case studies presented in this thesis emphasize the importance of number of modes retained in the reduced order model for both CMSM and nonlinear forced response analysis. Furthermore, the results of the case studies have shown that both nonlinearity and mistuning can cause shifts in resonance frequencies and changes in resonance amplitudes. Despite the changes in resonance conditions, the shape of the blade motion may not be affected.

Highly-loaded turbomachine blades can stall under off-design conditions. In this regime, the flow can separate close to the leading edge of the blade in a periodic manner that can lead to blade vibrations, commonly referred to as stall flutter. Prior experimental studies on stall flutter have been at large Re (Re ~ 106). In the present work, motivated by applications in Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) and Micro Air Vehicles (MAV), we study experimentally the forces and flow fields around an oscillating blade at low Re (Re ~ 3 x 104). At these low Re, the flow even over the stationary blade can be quite different. We experimentally study the propensity of an isolated symmetric and cambered blade (with chord c) to undergo self-excited oscillations at high angles of attack and at low Reynolds numbers (Re ~ 30, 000). We force the blade, placed at large mean angle of attack, to undergo small amplitude pitch oscillations and measure the unsteady loads on the blade. From the measured loads, the direction and magnitude of energy transfer to/from the blade is calculated. Systematic measurements have been made for varying mean blade incidence angles and for different excitation amplitudes and frequencies (f). These measurements indicate that post stall there is a possibility of excitation of the blade over a range of Strouhal Numbers (St = fc/U) with the magnitude of the exciting energy varying with amplitude, frequency and mean incidence angles. In particular, the curves for the magnitude of the exciting energy against Strouhal number (St) are found to shift to higher St values as the mean angle of attack is increased. We perform the same set of experiments on two different blade shapes, namely NACA 0012 and a compressor blade profile, SC10. Both blade profiles show qualitatively similar phenomena. The flow around both the stationary and oscillating blades is studied through Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). PIV measurements on the stationary blade show the gradual shift of the flow separation point towards the leading edge with increasing angle of attack, which occurs at these low Re. From PIV measurements on an oscillating blade near stall, we present the flow field around the blade at different phases of the blade oscillation. These show that the boundary layer separates from the leading edge forming a shear layer, which flaps with respect to the blade. As the Strouhal number is varied, the phase between the flapping shear layer and the blade appears to change. This is likely to be the reason for the observed change in the sign of the energy transfer between the flow and the blade that is responsible for stall flutter.