Using an Additive Manufacturing Design Method to Achieve Fan Blade Damage Resistance

Abstract This document presents the results comparing fatigue life and damping performance of an i-DAMP-designed blade to a baseline blade. The i-DAMP method is a design tool that strategically places powder-filled voids in parts that act as a vibration suppression mechanism. The blades in this study are made from Nickel Alloy 718 powder with the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing (AM) process. This study is important because of high gas turbine engine maintenance, repair, and overhaul costs and the potential of AM to solve integrity and repeatability issues for future components. The i-DAMP method, which is a design approach for achieving vibration suppression that promotes lightweight and low stress parts, is a viable solution to the AM integrity issues. The damping comparisons in this study show that the i-DAMP designed blades achieve 45–60% vibration suppression over the baseline blades. The study also shows that a 10× fatigue life resistance is achieved by the i-DAMP designed blade versus the baseline blade. The damping and fatigue performance improvement in the i-DAMP design blades compared to baseline is a necessary step before advancing the study to i-DAMP blade assessments on bladed disks (blisks) operating in a spin rig environment.