Fatigue crack growth behavior of a nickel-based superalloy under turbine standard spectrum loads

In this investigation, the growth behavior of a crack in a nickel-based superalloy under a turbine standard load sequence was determined by experimental, analytical, and computational methods. In the first experimental approach, ASTM standard compact tension (CT) test specimens were fabricated and fatigue crack growth (FCG) tests were conducted in a universal test machine under cold-TURBISTAN, a turbine standard spectrum load sequence. In the second analytical method, after rain-flow cycle counting of the cold-TURBISTAN sequence, the crack growth was estimated for each counted cycle from the crack growth law. The accumulated crack extension for each block of loading was thus estimated to determine the FCG behavior. In the third computational approach, a CT specimen containing an initial crack was modeled and the FCG behavior was predicted under cold-TURBISTAN spectrum load sequence using FRANC3D. The FCG trend predicted by analytical and computational methods was almost similar to the observed experimental behavior. The predicted FCG life was conservative with a life ratio ranging from 0.9 to 0.95.