Modelling a Friction Damper: Analysis of the Experimental Data and Comparison With Numerical Results

High cycle fatigue is one of the main causes of failure of blades in turbomachinery. The negative impact of HCF on turbomachinery blades can be reduced by dry friction vibration damping. A typical application of dry friction damping in gas turbine is the so called “underplatform damper”. In this work a ‘real life’ asymmetric underplatform damper is experimentally tested with two real blades. A static test rig is used to obtain the nonlinear frequency response function of a mock-up made with two real blades with an underplatform damper between them. This paper addresses an underplatform damper model taking into account damper rotation. The proper mathematical formulations have been developed and forced response calculation of the system have been performed. Comparison with experimental data are carried out for different values of excitation forces and for pre-load similar to real centrifugal force values.