A novel rotor dynamic balancing method based on blade tip clearance measurement without the once per revolution sensor

The existence of the aeroengine casing, limited monitoring points, and multi-fault characteristics make obtaining the rotor’s vibration transmission characteristics challenging, resulting in difficulties accurately identifying the rotor unbalance. This paper utilizes a high-frequency composite sensor to monitor the engine’s blade tip clearance (BTC) and extracts unbalanced information from BTC signals for rotor dynamic balancing, while avoiding the need for the once per revolution (OPR) sensor. First, the vibration characteristics of the rotor-blade system under multi-fault conditions are investigated. Then, based on BTC measurement, a none OPR method and an unbalance identification method are proposed, in which the radial vibration of the blade tip in the BTC signals at different speeds is extracted and operated in the time domain to obtain the rotor unbalanced vibration, the signal is reconstructed, and cross-correlation analysis is used to accurately identify the magnitude and phase of the unbalanced signal. Finally, a rotor test bench is utilized for experimental verification. The results reveal that the dynamic balancing method based on the BTC signal can more precisely identify the rotor unbalance than the traditional rotor dynamic balancing method. The application of this technique will effectively improve engine health management and fault prediction.