Experimental friction damping characteristic of a steam turbine blade coupled by shroud and snubber at standstill set-up

In order to avoid the high cycle fatigue which leads to the failure of turbine blades, friction structural damping has been widely used in turbine blade designs to reduce vibratory stresses by energy dissipation. A method is developed here to analyze the influence of friction structural damping on the vibration characteristics of turbine blades. Vibratory responses of a long steam turbine blade with shroud and snubber are studied. Finite element contact analysis of the steam turbine blades which are modeled in 3-D solid elements is conducted to obtain the normal contact force on the shroud contact surface and snubber contact surface of adjacent blades under five different rotational speeds (2100rpm, 2200rpm, 2413rpm, 2600rpm and 3000rpm). A rig for the tests of non-rotating turbine blade with friction damping structure is built. The normal contact forces of the shroud and snubber are applied to the blade according to numerical results. The response curves and modal damping ratios of the blade under different normal contact forces, which each one is related to a different rotational speed, are obtained. The experimental results show that with increases in rotational speed, modal damping ratio of the blade experiences an increasing period followed by a decreasing period while the resonance amplitude decreases first and then increases when there is only shroud contact. The effects are similar when there are both shroud and snubber contact. The modal damping ratio of the blade is basically identical with that of the uncoupled blade for the rotational speed above 2600rpm. For this range of rotational speed, the resonance frequency increases with the increase of rotational speed, and the changes of the resonance frequency are very trivial.