Minimizing Maximum Modal Force in Mistuned Bladed Disk Forced Response

Amplitude magnification is defined as the maximum forced response amplitude of any blade on a mistuned bladed disk divided by the maximum response amplitude of any blade on a tuned bladed disk over a range of engine order excitation frequencies. This paper shows that amplitude magnification can be approximated as the maximum ratio of modal force divided by modal vector magnitude in an isolated family of turbine engine bladed disk modes. An infinite linear mistuning pattern, defined by a constant interblade stiffness increment between an infinite number of blades, is found to minimize the maximum modal force when subjected to engine order N/4 excitation. Linear mistuning, an approximation of the infinite linear mistuning pattern, approximately minimizes the maximum modal force for bladed disks with a finite number of blades when subjected to engine order N/4 excitation. From this theory, $2/N$ is proposed to be a lower boundary for amplitude magnification. The linear mistuning method is demonstrated to produce very low amplitude magnifications numerically and experimentally. The numerical examples suggest that linear mistuning may produce amplitude magnifications near the absolute minimum possible.