Insight Into the Rotor Dynamics Consortium’s History, Vision, and Ongoing Technical Projects

The Engine-Aero industry has used MSC Nastran for propulsion loads and dynamics for more than 40 years. Over that timeframe, many collaborative efforts have taken place to position MSC Nastran to satisfy the structural dynamics analysis requirements when designing a new engine and installing it on an airplane. In the late 1990s, a NASA/Boeing/MSC Software (now part of Hexagon AB) rotor dynamic consortium was formed. This effort lasted for a decade (∼1998 to 2008) and resulted in numerous significant rotor dynamics simulation capability improvements driven by Boeing, the jet engine manufacturers and turbo-machinery companies. Now it’s 2023, fifteen years later, and the Engine-Aero industry again is expressing the need to push additional development into MSC Nastran’s rotor dynamic capabilities. This is supported by Boeing, jet engine OEMs, including General Electric, Safran Aircraft Engines, Pratt and Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and Honeywell. The Rotor Dynamics Consortium aims to define, drive, and standardize requirements to build models to address demanding rotor dynamics modeling and simulation needs. In this paper we will discuss what constitutes the consortium, the participating companies, subject matter, and the timeline to complete some of the ongoing initiatives. It will also include technical details about some of the ongoing activities (but is not excluded to): Advanced non-linear harmonic response; Support for 1D, axisymmetric and 3D Rotors; Synchronous analysis with multiple rotors; Consistent super elements and model reduction techniques; Internal rotor damping; and the solution procedure to best capture the effects of internal rotor damping for complex eigenvalue analysis (Campbell diagram) and frequency response analysis.