STUDY ON SURFACE INTEGRITY AND ITS INFLUENCE ON HIGH TEMPERATURE FATIGUE BEHAVIOR WHEN TURNING POWDER METALLURGY NI-BASED SUPERALLOY

Abstract

As a member of the latest generation of powder metallurgy Ni-based superalloy, FGH96 has already been widely applied in the manufacturing of aero-engines because of its distinguished mechanical performances. The surface integrity plays an essential role in the final fatigue life of the machined parts. However, surface modification induced by the machining process is inevitable, which profoundly affects the high temperature fatigue behavior of the manufactured part during the service lifetime. To cover the gap, the present work was carried out to specially study the surface integrity and its influence on high temperature fatigue behavior of powder metallurgy Ni-based superalloy when subjected to the mechanical turning process. The surface integrity, including surface morphology, micro-hardness, and depth-dependent residual stress, was initially characterized under different input parameters. High temperature fatigue tests were then conducted on the processed specimens to correlate the surface integrity and its fatigue behavior. Results showed that input parameters greatly influence the surface condition and thus the high temperature fatigue behavior. Poor integrity on machined surface leads to poor fatigue performance with typical fatigue fracture morphology, including crack initiation, propagation, and final fracture. While fine integrity on machined surface contributes to better fatigue performance. More interestingly, the fracture morphology in this situation shows similarity to the static tensile fracture, which presents shear failure along the direction of maximum shear stress.