The “flutter” of blades within compressors and turbines is a serious cause of machine failure that is difficult to predict and expensive to correct. This aeromechanical phenomenon usually occurs at a blade natural frequency and involves sustained blade vibration resulting from the changing pressure field around the blade as it oscillates. For the process to occur, it is necessary that, over one cycle, there is an input of energy from the gas stream to the blade of a sufficient magnitude to overcome the mechanical damping.

Clearly, flutter is dependent on both the aerodynamic and structural characteristics of the blade, and, until recently, it has been beyond the design capability to satisfactorily investigate and avoid this phenomenon. Historically, empirical design criteria have been used based on parameters involving blade natural frequencies and flow transit times, but these methods fail to take into account generally found vibrational modes or the influence of adjacent blades.