Coating Methods to Increase Material Damping of Compressor Blades: Measurements and Modeling

Methods are developed to improve damping of compressor blades, where unconstrained and constrained damping techniques are applied to the blades to increase material damping, displaying both measurement and modeling results. Two specimens, titanium and stainless steel, are treated by aluminum oxide and epoxy coating material. Measurements of material damping of simple beam specimens without and with treatments are carried out and results show that both treatments give damping increase, where aluminum treatment is more effective for damping improvement than the corresponding epoxy treatment. The unconstrained damping layer model is used to predict the total material damping of the combined structure as well as the material damping of coating layer. Comparisons with measured results are made. The constrained-layer model is also used to optimize the damping configuration and parametric analyses are performed. Two compressor blades in titanium and stainless steel are tested in air and vacuum conditions to measure material damping and results show that difference between air and vacuum situations exists. One reason is being that the radiation loss factor produced in air condition increases damping comparing with the damping in vacuum condition. The calculation of the radiation loss factor is performed to match the measurement data and results demonstrate that the radiation loss factor is one factor and air friction is another strong factor in this case. Finally, increasing material damping gives a contribution to decrease peak stress values and therefore increase the life time of compressor blades.