A Probabilistic Approach to Aircraft Turbine Rotor Material Design

Abstract

A probabilistic design code is being developed for high energy disks and rotors used in aircraft gas turbine engines. This code is intended to augment, not replace, the current safe-life approach to the design of these critical components. While the code will ultimately be applicable to a range of disk alloys, initial emphasis has been placed on titanium alloys containing hard alpha defects. The approach involves developing an enhanced defect distribution for hard alpha, obtaining crack initiation data for hard alpha and fatigue crack growth data for three titanium alloys, and integrating this information into a software code that is sufficiently efficient that it can be routinely used for design and life prediction.