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No / This paper presents and compares the most important and often used methods to measure turbine blade vibrations: use of strain gauges and telemetry system which is an intrusive method or, on the other site. The Blade Tip Timing (BTT) method known as Non-Intrusive Stress Measurement (System) NSMS. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages which are described below. This paper focused on synchronous vibrations, which are more important in terms of turbine blades fatigue prediction and design optimization.

<p> The present investigation deals with Gas Turbine Blade Vibrations. Literature on the techniques employed for experimental investigation of gas turbine blade vibration characteristics has been summarised. Various steps have been explained by reviewing the different techniques. Several causes for possible excitation of blades as well as damping methods to suppress the resulting vibrations are also included. Attempts were made to determine experimentally the natural frequencies of cantilever plates of thin uniform rectangular cross section, with and without pretwist. First natural frequency_ -of the plate without twist was in good agreement with the one calculated from the plate formula. Free vibration analysis of cantilever plates of thin uniform rectangular cross section is made. Finite Element Technique is used to determine the elastic and inertial properties of a fully compatible triangular element. Computed values of natural freqencies and mode shapes are compared with other analytical results. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

The main contributor to the high-cycle fatigue of compressor blades is the response to aerodynamic forcing functions generated by an upstream row of stators or inlet guide vanes. Resonant response to engine order excitation at certain rotor speeds is especially damaging. Studies have shown that flow control by trailing edge blowing (TEB) can reduce stator wake strength and the amplitude of the downstream rotor blade vibrations generated by the unsteady stator-rotor interaction. In the present study, the effectiveness of TEB to reduce forced blade vibrations was evaluated in a modern single-stage transonic compressor rig. A row of wake generator (WG) vanes with TEB capability was installed upstream of the fan blisk, the blades of which were instrumented with strain gages. Data was collected for varied TEB conditions over a range of rotor speed which included one fundamental and multiple harmonic resonance crossings. Sensitivity of resonant response amplitude to full-span TEB flowrate, as well as optimal TEB flowrates, are documented for multiple modes. Resonant response sensitivity was generally characterized by a robust region of substantial attenuation, such that less-than-optimal TEB flowrates could prove to be an appropriate design tradeoff. The fundamental crossing amplitude of the first torsion mode was reduced by as much as 85% with full-span TEB at 1.1% of the total rig inlet flow. Similar reductions were achieved for the various harmonic crossings, including as much as 94% reduction of the second leading edge bending mode resonant response using 0.74% of the rig flow for full-span TEB. At least 32% reduction was achieved for all modal crossings over the broad flow range of 0.5 to 0.9% of the rig flow. Thus the results demonstrate the modal- and flowrate-robustness of full-span TEB for reducing forced response in a modern, closely-spaced transonic compressor. Reduced spanwise TEB coverage was generally found to provide less peak reduction. Widely varying sensitivities of the vibration modes to the spanwise TEB distribution were also noted. While the second chordwise mode experienced roughly the same maximum response reduction of 80% for all of the spanwise TEB configurations, some other modes were amplified from the baseline case under part-span TEB conditions. Part-span TEB was thus found to be less modally-robust than full-span TEB. / Ph. D.

Dans le cadre de la certification de ses moteurs d'hélicoptères, Safran Helicopter Engines réalise des essais en fonctionnement lors desquels les réponses vibratoires de turbomachines (compresseurs et turbines) sont mesurées. Les réponses vibratoires contiennent des modes (ou raies spectrales) dont les fréquences et amplitudes doivent être caractérisées. Les mesures sont réalisées par la technologie tip-timing qui permet d'observer les vibrations de toutes les pales d'un aubage en rotation.Cependant, la technologie tip-timing présente deux spécificités importantes. Premièrement, l'échantillonnage des signaux de vibrations est irrégulier quasi-périodique. Deuxièmement, l'ordre de grandeur des fréquences de vibration est généralement supérieur à la fréquence d'échantillonnage équivalente. Ces deux caractéristiques donnent lieu à des artefacts des composantes fréquentielles sur les spectres des signaux de vibrations. Ceux-ci gênent alors fortement l'identification du contenu spectral et perturbent donc l'interprétation du comportement vibratoire des pales.La nouvelle méthode d'analyse spectrale proposée s'appuie sur une modélisation parcimonieuse des signaux tip-timing et prend en compte les variations de la fréquence de rotation. L'analyse spectrale des signaux est alors réalisée par la minimisation d'un critère des moindres carrés linéaires régularisé par une pénalisation de "norme-l0" par l'algorithme Block-OMP.À l'aide de résultats numériques sur signaux synthétiques, il est démontré que cette méthode fournit de bonnes performances d'estimations des composantes spectrales et réalise une réduction importante de leurs artefacts. La prise en compte des variations de la fréquence de rotation permet en effet de tirer profit de l'utilisation de longues durées d'observation afin de réduire significativement les artefacts des composantes fréquentielles contenus dans les spectres. Par ailleurs, avec des performances légèrement meilleures à celles de l'ESMV (méthode reconnue pour l'analyse spectrale des signaux tip-timing), la méthode proposée est environ cent fois plus rapide.Deux cas de données réelles sont étudiés. À travers une détection de crique de pale, le premier cas d'étude montre que la méthode proposée est pertinente et réalise des estimations comparables aux méthodes industrielles. Le second cas d'étude présente plusieurs vibrations synchrones et asynchrones simultanées. Cela met en avant la capacité de réduction des artefacts des composantes fréquentielles de la méthode développée afin de faciliter l'interprétation du contenu vibratoire complexe de ce signal.L'optimisation du placement des sondes tip-timing est également étudiée pour faciliter l'identification des composantes synchrones. À partir de résultats numériques, il est démontré qu'éloigner les capteurs améliore l'estimation des amplitudes ce type de composantes. / As part of the certification of its helicopter engines, Safran Helicopter Engines performs operational tests in which the vibrations responses of turbomachines (compressors and turbines) are measured. The vibratory responses contain modes (or spectral lines) whose frequencies and amplitudes must be characterized. The measurements are provided by the tip-timing technology which can observe the vibrations of all the blades while rotating.However, tip-timing technology has two important features. Firstly, the sampling of the vibrating signals is irregular quasi-periodic. Secondly, the vibrating frequencies are generally higher than the equivalent sampling frequency. These two characteristics generate frequency components artefacts onto the vibrating signals spectrum. As a consequence, they strongly hinder the identification of the spectral content and thus disturb the interpretation of the blades vibratory behaviour.The proposed new spectral analysis method relies on sparse modelling of the tip-timing signals and considers the variations of the rotational frequency. The spectral analysis of the signals is then performed by the minimization of a linear least squares criterion regularized by a penalty of "norm-l0" by the Block-OMP algorithm.Using numerical results from synthetic signals, it is shown that this method provides good spectral component estimation performances and achieves a significant reduction of their artefacts. Considering the variations of the rotational frequency allows to take advantage of the use of long observation periods in order to significantly reduce the frequency components artefacts contained in the spectrum. In addition, with slightly better performances than the ESMV (acknowledged method for the tip-timing signals spectral analysis), the proposed method is about a hundred times faster.Two cases of real data are studied. Through a detection of a blade crack, the first studied case shows that the proposed method is relevant and makes equivalent estimates with respect to industrial methods. The second studied case presents several simultaneous synchronous and asynchronous vibrations. That highlights the ability to reduce the frequency components artefacts of the developed method in order to simplify the interpretation of the complex vibratory content of this signal.The optimization of the positioning of the tip-timing probes is also studied in order to simplify the identification of synchronous components. From numerical results, it is demonstrated that moving away the probes improves the amplitudes estimation of this type of components.

Rotating blades are considered to be the one of the most common cause of failures in rotating machinery. Blade failure modes normally occur as a result of cracks due to unexpected operating conditions, which are normally caused by accidents of foreign objects damage, high cycle fatigue, blade rubbing, blade root looseness, and degradation from erosion and corrosion. Thus, detection of blade faults has an important role in reducing blade related failures and allowing repairs to be scheduled for the machinery. This in turn will lead to reduction in maintenance costs and thus raise productivity and safety aspects of operation. To maintain vital components of rotating machines, such as blades, shafts, bearings and gear boxes, at optimal levels, detection of failures in such components is important, because this will prevent any serious damage that could affect performance. This research study involves laboratory tests on a small rig with a bladed disc rotor that applied vibration measurements and analysis for blade fault detection. Three measurements: shaft torsional vibration, on-bearing vibration (OBV) and on-casing vibration (OCV), are used. A small test rig of a single stage bladed disc holding 8-blades was designed and manufactured, to carry out this research study to assess the usefulness and capability of each vibration technique in detection of incipient defects within machine blades. A series of tests was conducted on a test rig for three different cases of blade health conditions: (a) healthy blade(s) with mistuned effects, (b) blade root looseness and (c) cracks in a blade on two different blade sizes (long and short blades) in order to discover changes in blades' dynamic behaviour during the machine running-up operation. The data were collected using the three measurements during machine run-up and then recorded. The measured vibration data were analysed by computing the blades' resonance at different engine orders (EOs) related to the blade(s) resonance frequencies and their higher harmonics, to understand the blade(s) dynamics behaviour for the cases of healthy and faulty blade(s). Data have been further processed using a polar plot presentation method which provides clear results that can be used for monitoring blade integrity. To validate the obtained experimental results, a simplified mathematical model was also developed. Finally, a comparative study between three methods was undertaken to understand the relative advantages and limitations in the blade heath monitoring.

The on-line condition monitoring of turbomachinery blades is of utmost importance to ensure the long term health and availability of such machines and as such has been an area of study since the late 1960s. As a result a number of on-line blade vibration measurement techniques are available, each with its own associated advantages and shortcomings. In general, on-blade sensor measurement techniques suffer from sensor lifespan, whereas non-contact techniques usually have measurement bandwidth limitations. One non-contact measurement technique that yields improvements in the area of measurement bandwidth is laser Doppler vibrometry. This thesis presents results and findings from utilizing laser Doppler vibrometry in an Eulerian fashion (i.e. a fixed reference frame) to measure on-line blade vibrations in axial-flow turbomachinery. With this measurement approach, the laser beam is focussed at a fixed point in space and measurements are available for the periods during which each blade sweeps through the beam. The characteristics of the measurement technique are studied analytically with an Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beam and experimental verification is performed. An approach for the numerical simulation of the measurement technique is then presented. Associated with the presented measurement technique are the short periods during which each blade is exposed to the laser beam. This characteristic yields traditional frequency domain signal processing techniques unsuitable for providing useful blade health indicators. To obtain frequency domain information from such short signals, it is necessary to employ non-standard signal processing techniques such as non-harmonic Fourier analysis. Results from experimental testing on a single-blade test rotor at a single rotor speed are presented in the form of phase angle trends obtained with non-harmonic Fourier analysis. Considering the maximum of absolute unwrapped phase angle trends around various reference frequencies, good indicators of blade health deterioration were obtained. These indicators were verified numerically. To extend the application of this condition monitoring approach, measurements were repeated on a five-blade test rotor at four different rotor speeds. Various damage cases were considered as well as different ELDV measurement positions. Using statistical parameters of the abovementioned indicators as well as time domain parameters, it is shown that with this condition monitoring approach, blade damage can successfully be identified and quantified with the aid of artificial neural networks. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

Der stetig anwachsende Bedarf und die innovative Weiterentwicklung im Bereich der Großdieselmotoren als Antrieb für Schiffe und Generatoranlagen erfordert ebenfalls die Weiterentwicklung der Abgasturbolader. Hohe Leistungsfähigkeit und Wirtschaftlichkeit ist nur durch moderne Fertigungsverfahren und einer optimalen Ausnutzung der eingesetzten, hochwertigen Werkstoffe zu erreichen. Dies gilt insbesondere für die integralen Radialturbinenräder in Abgasturboladern, die aufgrund der hohen Betriebsbelastungen einen zentralen Punkt bei der Auslegung darstellen. Lebensdauerbegrenzend ist die hochzyklische Ermüdung aufgrund Resonanzschwingungen an der Beschaufelung der Turbinenräder. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll die Auslegungsmethodik zur Berechnung und Beurteilung der zu erwartenden Schwingbeanspruchungen der Turbinenräder im Hinblick der realen Geometrie verbessern. Dazu wird ein einfaches Berechnungsmodell zur Identifizierung der kritischen Schaufelmoden und Bestimmung der Schwingbeanspruchungen im integralen Turbinenrad erarbeitet. Das Modell wird auf vorhandene Turbinenräder angewendet und aus den Ergebnissen werden Hinweise für eine systematische Beurteilung der Schaufelmoden, Knotendurchmesser und Schaufelgestaltung bezüglich der kritischen Schwingbeanspruchungen angegeben. Desweiteren wird der Einfluss der Verstimmung (engl. Mistuning) des Schwingverhaltens realer, integraler Turbinenräder ausführlich im Hinblick auf die Schwingbeanspruchungen untersucht. Die wesentlichen Ursachen für die Verstimmung sind die innerhalb der Fertigungstoleranzen auftretenden Geometrieabweichungen der Schaufeln. Dabei wird ein Überblick über die typischen Geometrie- und Frequenzabweichungen Radialturbinen gegeben und Auswirkungen auf das Schwingverhalten des Rades wie Lokalisierung der Schwingformen und Amplitudenüberhöhungen ermittelt und in einen systematischen Zusammenhang mit den geometrischen Ursachen, der Komplexität der Schaufelschwingformen und Knotendurchmesser gestellt. Es zeigt sich, dass unter gewissen Voraussetzungen bei Radialturbinen KD0 und KD1 Schwingformen weniger sensibel auf die Verstimmung reagieren. Hieraus können Hinweise für die Verbesserung des Auslegungsprozess abgeleitet werden. Die Kenntnis über das reale Schwingverhalten verstimmter Turbinenräder ermöglicht die korrekte Auswahl geeigneter Schaufeln zur Applikation von Dehnmessstreifen, wodurch eine sichere Beurteilung der Betriebsbeanspruchungen erst möglich wird.

Der stetig anwachsende Bedarf und die innovative Weiterentwicklung im Bereich der Großdieselmotoren als Antrieb für Schiffe und Generatoranlagen erfordert ebenfalls die Weiterentwicklung der Abgasturbolader. Hohe Leistungsfähigkeit und Wirtschaftlichkeit ist nur durch moderne Fertigungsverfahren und einer optimalen Ausnutzung der eingesetzten, hochwertigen Werkstoffe zu erreichen. Dies gilt insbesondere für die integralen Radialturbinenräder in Abgasturboladern, die aufgrund der hohen Betriebsbelastungen einen zentralen Punkt bei der Auslegung darstellen. Lebensdauerbegrenzend ist die hochzyklische Ermüdung aufgrund Resonanzschwingungen an der Beschaufelung der Turbinenräder. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll die Auslegungsmethodik zur Berechnung und Beurteilung der zu erwartenden Schwingbeanspruchungen der Turbinenräder im Hinblick der realen Geometrie verbessern. Dazu wird ein einfaches Berechnungsmodell zur Identifizierung der kritischen Schaufelmoden und Bestimmung der Schwingbeanspruchungen im integralen Turbinenrad erarbeitet. Das Modell wird auf vorhandene Turbinenräder angewendet und aus den Ergebnissen werden Hinweise für eine systematische Beurteilung der Schaufelmoden, Knotendurchmesser und Schaufelgestaltung bezüglich der kritischen Schwingbeanspruchungen angegeben. Desweiteren wird der Einfluss der Verstimmung (engl. Mistuning) des Schwingverhaltens realer, integraler Turbinenräder ausführlich im Hinblick auf die Schwingbeanspruchungen untersucht. Die wesentlichen Ursachen für die Verstimmung sind die innerhalb der Fertigungstoleranzen auftretenden Geometrieabweichungen der Schaufeln. Dabei wird ein Überblick über die typischen Geometrie- und Frequenzabweichungen Radialturbinen gegeben und Auswirkungen auf das Schwingverhalten des Rades wie Lokalisierung der Schwingformen und Amplitudenüberhöhungen ermittelt und in einen systematischen Zusammenhang mit den geometrischen Ursachen, der Komplexität der Schaufelschwingformen und Knotendurchmesser gestellt. Es zeigt sich, dass unter gewissen Voraussetzungen bei Radialturbinen KD0 und KD1 Schwingformen weniger sensibel auf die Verstimmung reagieren. Hieraus können Hinweise für die Verbesserung des Auslegungsprozess abgeleitet werden. Die Kenntnis über das reale Schwingverhalten verstimmter Turbinenräder ermöglicht die korrekte Auswahl geeigneter Schaufeln zur Applikation von Dehnmessstreifen, wodurch eine sichere Beurteilung der Betriebsbeanspruchungen erst möglich wird.