Full-field dynamic strain reconstruction of an aero-engine blade from limited displacement responses

Blade strain distribution and its change with time are crucial for reliability analysis and residual life evaluation in blade vibration tests. Traditional strain measurements are achieved by strain gauges (SGs) in a contact manner at discrete positions on the blades. This study proposes a method of full-field and real-time strain reconstruction of an aero-engine blade based on limited displacement responses. Limited optical measured displacement responses are utilized to reconstruct the full-field strain. The full-field strain distribution is in-time visualized. A displacement-to-strain transformation matrix is derived on the basis of the blade mode shapes in the modal coordinate. The proposed method is validated on an aero-engine blade in numerical and experimental cases. Three discrete vibrational displacement responses measured by laser triangulation sensors are used to reconstruct the full-field strain over the whole operating time. The reconstructed strain responses are compared with the results measured by SGs and numerical simulation. The high consistency between the reconstructed and measured results demonstrates the accurate strain reconstructed by the method. This paper provides a low-cost, real-time, and visualized measurement of blade full-field dynamic strain using displacement response, where the traditional SGs would fail.