Low Cycle Fatigue Behaviour of a Turbine Blade Made of Nickel Base Wrought Alloy

Abstract

Life of an aero-engine is limited by the life of the turbine blade in particular and that of hot end components in general. Design of aero-engine is always conservative in nature considering the flight safety as paramount important. Earlier engines have been assigned life in hours but the life of the component is limited by LCF cycles particularly during the start-stop cycles. In this paper LCF behaviour of a typical Russian origin nickel base wrought super alloy AP220BD used for turbine blade has been studied at room temperature (RT), 400 °C and 700 °C that corresponds to idle rating and cruise rating of a typical aero-engine. Low cycle fatigue (LCF) tests have been carried out at RT, 400°C and 700 °C at three strain amplitudes of ±0.3%, ±0.5% and ±0.8%. Hysteresis loop have been developed at each strain and temperature. It has been observed that LCF life of the nickel base wrought alloy AP220BD is not influenced significantly at strain amplitude of ±0.3% till it reaches 400° C. Reduction in LCF life with increase in strain amplitude from ±0.3% to ±0.8% is much significant compared to that of increase in temperature up to 700°c.The higher life at intermediate strain of ±0.5% may be due to DSA(dynamic strain aging) of the material. Transgranular fracture has been observed at RT & 400° C while intergranular fracture at 700° C.