Insight into the influence of frictional heat on the modal characteristics and interface temperature of frictionally damped turbine blades

The reciprocating relative motions of friction pairs introduce nonlinearities into the host structure, while also generating frictional heat, leading to a noticeable temperature rise at the contact interface. Consequently, the contact mechanics properties are not invariant but highly dependent on temperature. To elucidate the thermo-mechanical interaction mechanism in dry friction systems, we propose a novel multi-physical nonlinear modal analysis method called Thermo-Mechanical damped Nonlinear Normal Mode (TM-dNNM). This numerical method enables the determination of nonlinear modal characteristics considering thermo-mechanical coupling and the prediction of detailed temperature distribution on contact interface. The efficiency and convergence of the TM-dNNM are ensured through three key techniques: multi-physics reduced order modeling, analytical Jacobian matrix, and scaling adjustment. We apply the proposed numerical method to a typical turbine blade with a flat underplatform damper for engineering purposes. Results indicate that frictional heat significantly affects the nonlinear modal characteristics, exhibiting complex behavior such as softening/stiffening reversal and resonance amplitude backtracking. Neglecting the thermo-mechanical coupling can lead to a deviation of more than 13Hz in the predicted modal frequency and an overestimation of the modal damping ratio by a factor of three. Interface temperature rises considerably at higher vibration levels, with the hotspot located near the lower left corner of the contact surface, where the average temperature exceeds 1180℃, approaching the melting point. By employing the TM-dNNM, designers can predict critical resonance amplitudes and identify potential local hotspots, thus helping prevent excessive temperature at the interface of frictionally damped turbine blades.