Application of Variational Asymptotic Method for Structural Analysis of Fan Rotor Blades in Boundary Layer Ingesting Flow Field
Date
2020-01Author
Gupta, Mohit
Pokhrel, Manish
Hodges, Dewey H.
Mavris, Dimitri N.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI) appears to be a promising technology for reducing aircraft
fuel burn. Despite potential benefits, there are several challenges associated with BLI. A
primary concern is the structural integrity of the fan blades experiencing unsteady forces
due to unequal work input from the rotor at different circumferential locations of the engine
annulus. In the conceptual design phase, rapid turnaround is as important as measuring the
stresses accurately. Through the present work, the authors present a computationally efficient
framework for measuring natural frequencies and analyzing time histories of 3-D stresses
in nonlinear transient structural analyses of rotating fan blades. This framework uses state
of the art tools developed for beam modeling based on Variational Asymptotic Method and
the Geometrically Exact Beam Theory. The authors also provide verification of the present
framework against 3-D finite element analysis performed in COMSOL.