Direct prediction of the effects of mistuning on the forced response of bladed disks

In this paper, a novel approach to determine reliable estimates of the moments of the steady state resonant response of a randomly mistuned bladed disk is presented and the use of these moments to accurately predict the corresponding distribution of the amplitude of blade vibration is describe. The estimation of the moments of the response is accomplished first by relying on a `joint cumulant closure' strategy that expresses higher order moments in terms of lower order ones. A simple modeling of the error terms of these approximations is also suggested that allows the determination of an improved, or accelerated, estimates of the required moments. The evaluation of the distribution of the amplitude of blade response is then accomplished by matching the moments computed by the cumulant closure with those derived from a three-parameter model recently derived. A first order approximation of the moments obtained for a simple structural model of a bladed disk yields a new parameter that can be used as a measure of the localization of the forced response. Then, numerical results demonstrate that the method provides extremely accurate estimates of the moments for all levels of structural coupling which in turn lead to a description of the amplitude of blade response that closely matches simulation results. Finally, a comparison with existing perturbation techniques clearly shows the increased accuracy obtained with the proposed joint cumulant closure formulation.