Flutter analysis of blisks with friction ring dampers

Aeroelastic flutter is a phenomenon when blades experience an aeroelastic selfexcitation from the surrounding air resulting in the full destruction of aeroengines. It poses a big challenge for aeroengine bladeddisks design, especially for integrally bladeddisks (blisks). The lack of friction interfaces in blisks drastically reduces structural damping making them
more likely to experience aeroelastic flutter. One of the most effective approaches to improve the damping in a blisk is the use of friction ring dampers. This paper presents a numerical study to investigate the effects of friction ring dampers on the aeroelastic stability of blisks. A lumped parameter model is used to represent the blisk with a ring damper. Aeroelastic
selfexcitations are simply represented by Van der Pol oscillators. The frictional contact between the blisk and ring damper is modelled by using Jenkins elements. Nonlinear modal analysis is used to compute the nonlinear dynamic response of the system. The results show that the friction ring damper can significantly reduce the risk of flutter and the amplitude of flutter induced limit cycle oscillations for a blisk by increasing the structural damping, especially at a high modal amplitude. The study also shows that the nonlinear modal analysis can efficiently identify the flutter boundary of such a strongly dissipated nonlinear system