A geometrically exact approach to the overall dynamics of elastic rotating blades-part 2: flapping nonlinear normal modes

The geometrically exact equations of motion about the prestressed state discussed in part 1 (i.e., the nonlinear equilibrium under centrifugal forces) are expanded in the Taylor series of the incremental displacements and rotations to obtain the third-order perturbed form. The expanded form is amenable to a perturbation treatment to unfold the nonlinear features of free undamped flapping dynamics. The method of multiple scales is thus applied directly to the partial-differential equations of motion to construct the backbone curves of the flapping modes and their nonlinear approximations when they are away from internal resonances with other modes. The effective nonlinearity coefficients of the lowest three flapping modes of elastic isotropic blades are investigated when the angular speed is changed from low- to high-speed regimes. The novelty of the current findings is in the fact that the nonlinearity of the flapping modes is shown to depend critically on the angular speed since it can switch from hardening to softening and vice versa at certain speeds. The asymptotic results are compared with previous literature results. Moreover, 2:1 internal resonances between flapping and axial modes are exhibited as singularities of the effective nonlinearity coefficients. These nonlinear interactions can entail fundamental changes in the blade local and global dynamics.