Abstract: For exploring a new method to reduce helicopter’s vibration and studying the application of particle damping technology in vibration reduction for helicopter rotor blade,a helicopter blade model and a suitable form of particle damper are designed and produced, the damping effect of particle damping on rotating as well as nonrotating blade models is investigated by experiment. The results show that particle damping can effectively improve the damping level of a nonrotating blade models; in particular, it can increase the third modal damping ratio by more than ten times. In a range of low speeds, 〖JP2〗particle damping can effectively overcome the centrifugal force and reduce the flap and leadlag acceleration response of the rotating blade model. These results indicate that the application of particle damping as a vibrationcontrol method to helicopter blades is feasible.

Key words: particle damping, helicopter rotors, blade, damping ratio, acceleration amplitude, centrifugal force