Analysis and Calibration of Blade Tip-Timing Vibration Measurement Under Variable Rotating Speeds

Blade tip timing (BTT) vibration measurement is a promising on-line blade monitoring method, but various uncertainties bring great challenge in engineering applications. Most existing works are based on the assumption of constant rotating speeds. However, rotating speed is hardly fixed under variable conditions. In this case, these uncertainties always become more serious. To deal with this problem, this paper proposes to investigate BTT measurement derivations in angular domain, instead of time domain. Firstly, this paper systematically analyzes the effects of variable rotating speed, static angle errors and translational blade motions on the accuracy of BTT vibration measurement. Then the corresponding calibration methods are presented by only using times of arrival (TOAs). In the end, Matlab/Simulink simulations are done to validate the proposed method under linear and quadratic variations of rotating speeds. The results demonstrate that BTT measurement deviation under low rotating speeds is more than those under high rotating speeds and BTT measurement deviation due to static angle errors is independent of rotating speeds. And the proposed TOAs-based calibration method can reduce BTT measurement deviation greatly under variable rotating speeds, compared with traditional methods. BTT measurement deviation due to static angle errors can be calibrated by using low rotating speeds and those due to translational blade motions are difficult to be calibrated under variable rotating speeds. Thus simulation results indicate great potential of the proposed method for practical applications of the BTT method.