A model for the characterization of friction contacts in turbine blades

Stresses produced by the forced vibrations can lead to a significant reduction of the life of turbo engine blades. To predict the vibration amplitudes of this components an accurate dynamic analysis is necessary. The forced response calculation of these dynamic systems is strongly affected by the presence of the contact interfaces (i.e., underplatform dampers, shrouds, root joints). Different contact models are available in literature. These models make use of contact parameters, contact stiffness and friction coefficient to evaluate the damping and stiffness related to the contact interfaces. In this paper a model is proposed to characterize friction contact of non-spherical contact geometries obeying the Coulomb friction law with constant friction coefficient and constant normal load. The hysteresis curves of the oscillating tangential contact forces vs. relative tangential displacements and the dissipated energy at the contact are obtained for different contact geometries. The developed model is suitable to be implemented in numerical solvers for the calculation of the forced response of turbine blades with embedded friction contacts.