Experimental Study on Vibration of a Rotating Blade

The vibration of a rotating blade is investigated in this work. A rotor system is built and natural frequencies of the rotating blade are measured and compared with the numerical results from a finite element analysis. The experimental setup has a strain-gage-based telemetry system and a piezoelectric shaker that rotates with the rotor. The finite element model of the beam is derived based on the Timoshenko beam theory. The effects of varying rotating speeds and stagger angles on the blade natural frequencies are studied. The results indicate that the natural frequencies calculated from the finite element model and the experimental values are in good agreement. It is found that the blade natural frequencies increase with the rotating speed in a nonlinear way. The effects of the stagger angle on the measured natural frequencies are not clear.