Apparatus and method for optimizing a test bed that is utilized for testing low cycle and high-cycle fatigue including modifying a support

1. Method for producing an optimized low-cycle, and/or high-cycle, fatigue test rig, said test rig representative of a support of turbine engine parts, including a support of at least one blade root on a recess projection of a rotor disc, and comprising a support member which is fixed to a mount and defines at least two bearing surfaces, the test rig further comprising a test piece which is connected to a traction means for loading the test piece so that it bears against one or more of the at least two bearing surfaces of the support member, the method comprising the steps of: selecting variable, geometrical, parameters of the support member and/or the test piece, and

selecting ranges of variation of values of said variable parameters;

selecting at least one design objective of the test rig to be achieved or optimized, the variation of the values of at least one of said variable parameters affecting the design objective; wherein the design objective to be achieved is selected from the group consisting of the parallelism and the contact of the bearing surfaces between the test piece and the support member, a maximum amplitude of sliding between said surfaces, a homogeneous contact pressure between said surfaces, and combinations thereof;

testing one or more of the values of said variable parameters, in the respective ranges thereof, and determining those values which make it possible to achieve or optimize the design objective so as to identify optimized parameters; and

producing a support member and/or a test piece based on fixed parameters and the optimized parameters or equipping a new test rig, or modifying the support member and/or the test piece of an existing test rig based on the optimized parameters,

wherein the support member extends along a longitudinal direction and further comprises two middle portions respectively supporting the two bearing surfaces, each middle portion being connected, on the side opposite the traction means, by a first arm to a base for fixing to the mount and, on the side of the traction means, by a pair of second arms to first ends of two parallel crossbars which are at a distance from one another, the opposite second ends of the crossbars being connected by another pair of second arms to the other middle portion, the two pairs of second arms and the first arms extending along the longitudinal direction and in opposite direction with regard to the middle portion; and

wherein said variable parameters include at least one dimension of the second arms of each pair, and/or the angle of inclination of said second arms with respect to the corresponding crossbar or with respect to the bearing surface of the corresponding middle portion.

2. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the variable parameters include at least one dimension of each first arm, and/or the angle of inclination of each first arm with respect to the base or with respect to the bearing surface of the corresponding middle portion, and/or the height or length between the base and the bearing surfaces.

3. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the design objective to be achieved is the parallelism and the contact of the bearing surfaces between the test piece and the support member.

4. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the test rig being used for low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue tests and comprising two I-shaped parts having a flexible middle portion, one of which connects the support member to the mount and the other of which connects one end of a vibrating blade to the traction means, the other end of the blade being connected to the test piece, the rig further comprising excitation means cooperating with the I-shaped part connected to the blade for making said blade vibrate during the tests, the design objective to be achieved is a target vibration frequency of the blade.

5. Method according to claim 1 , wherein in the case in which at least two design objectives are determined, at least some of said design objectives are ranked in order of importance.

6. Method according to claim 1 wherein the test rig represents the support of at least one blade root against a recess projection of a rotor disc, and wherein the bearing surfaces of the test piece represent recess projection bearing surfaces of a rotor disc, and the bearing surfaces of the support member represent bearing surfaces of a blade root.

7. Low-cycle, and/or high-cycle, fatigue test rig, comprising:

a support member including at least two bearing surfaces for cooperating with bearing surfaces of a test piece in a test rig to represent a support of turbine engine parts, including a support of at least one blade root against a recess projection of a rotor disc, and to carry out low-cycle and/or high-cycle, fatigue tests, the support member configured to be fixed to a mount, and the test piece having to be connected to traction means for loading the test piece so that it bears against each bearing surface of the support member, wherein the support member further comprises two middle portions respectively supporting the two bearing surfaces, each middle portion being connected, on the side opposite the traction means, by a first arm to a base for fixing to the mount and, on the side of the traction means, by a pair of second arms to ends of two parallel crossbars which are at a distance from one another, the opposite ends of the bars being connected by another pair of second arms to the other middle portion

wherein the support member is optimized by the method according to claim 1 .

8. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the design objective to be achieved is a maximum amplitude of sliding between said surfaces.

9. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the design objective to be achieved is a homogeneous contact pressure between said surfaces.

10. Method according to claim 9 , wherein the surfaces of the test piece and the support member bearing against a rectangular region, the contact pressure is considered to be homogeneous when the ratio between the contact pressure in the region of a lower edge of the region and that in the region of an upper edge of the region is equal to approximately one.

11. Method according to claim 1 , wherein the surfaces of the test piece and the support member bearing against a rectangular region, the contact pressure is considered to be homogeneous when the ratio between the contact pressure in the region of a lower edge of the region and that in the region of an upper edge of the region is equal to approximately one.

12. Support member comprising at least two bearing surfaces for cooperating with bearing surfaces of a test piece in a test rig to represent a support of turbine engine parts, including a support of at least one blade root against a recess projection of a rotor disc, and to carry out low-cycle, and/or high-cycle, fatigue tests, the support member configured to be fixed to a mount, and the test piece having to be connected to traction means for loading the test piece so that it bears against each bearing surface of the support member,

wherein the support member extends along a longitudinal direction and further comprises two middle portions respectively supporting the two bearing surfaces, each middle portion being connected, on the side opposite the traction means, by a first arm to a base for fixing to the mount and, on the side of the traction means, by a pair of second arms to first ends of two parallel crossbars which are at a distance from one another, the opposite second ends of the bars being connected by another pair of second arms to the other middle portion, the two pairs of second arms and the first arms extending along the longitudinal direction and in opposite direction with regard to the middles portion.

13. Support member according to claim 12 , wherein the first arms of which are collinear to the shearing forces applied to the bearing surfaces and the second arms are collinear to the normal forces applied to said surfaces.