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This paper deals with the dynamic of blades with strip dampers. The purpose is 1) to present the results of the dynamic numerical calculation, 2) to demonstrate the need for the experimental data on the blade-strip contact to be used as input to the calculation, 3) to propose a new test rig design to obtain them and 4) to test the key components of the new test rig. The forced responses of two blades coupled by a strip damper are calculated at different excitation and centrifugal force values. The dependence of the numerical results on the contact parameter values is confirmed in this significant reference case. The design of a new test rig is then proposed: both the blade frequency response function and the contact hysteresis cycles at the blade-strip contact are measured. It is shown how contact parameters can then be derived from experimental data. The main novelty of the test rig here proposed is the strip loading system, which simulates the uniform pressure distribution provided by the centrifugal force in real operating conditions. This loading system is non-contact and uses compressed air. Classical loading systems which see dead weights directly connected to the strip are assessed and their expected inadequacy is confirmed. The compressed air system is tested by measuring the pressure produced between strip and blades: pressure is uniform across the contact patch, constant in time and its mean value corresponds to realistic pressure values actually experienced by strip dampers during service.

Most aircraft turbojet engines consist of multiple stages coupled by means of bolted flange joints which potentially represent source of nonlinearities due to friction phenomena. Methods aimed at predicting the forced response of multistage bladed disks have to take into account such nonlinear behavior and its effect in damping blades vibration. In this paper, a novel reduced order model (ROM) is proposed for studying nonlinear vibration due to contacts in multistage bladed disks. The methodology exploits the shape of the single-stage normal modes at the interstage boundary being mathematically described by spatial Fourier coefficients. Most of the Fourier coefficients represent the dominant kinematics in terms of the well-known nodal diameters (standard harmonics), while the others, which are detectable at the interstage boundary, correspond to new spatial small wavelength phenomena named as extra harmonics. The number of Fourier coefficients describing the displacement field at the interstage boundary only depends on the specific engine order (EO) excitation acting on the multistage system. This reduced set of coefficients allows the reconstruction of the physical relative displacement field at the interface between stages and, under the hypothesis of the single harmonic balance method (SHBM), the evaluation of the contact forces by employing the classic Jenkins contact element. The methodology is here applied to a simple multistage bladed disk and its performance is tested using as a benchmark the Craig–Bampton ROMs of each single stage.