Patent — available for licensing
Integral Tuned Mass Absorber for Turbine Blades
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has developed a novel turbine blade design and manufacturing approach that provides a significant reduction in turbine blade resonant vibration. In particular this innovation addresses the unique resonance vibration challenges of conventionally machined turbine bladed-discs, or blisks. The design approach includes an internal blade tuned mass absorber structure that can be placed at optimal location where deflection is greatest. Additive manufacturing is used to make this unique structure. Prototypes have demonstrated a 50% reduction in resonant vibration. Importantly, the innovation also enables improved predictive modelling of the resonant behavior of new blisk designs because the tuned-mass absorber acts as a linear system. In contrast, modelling of conventional blade dampers is extremely complex and therefore requires an expensive iterative test program dedicated to validation of the damper design.