Service failure of hot-stage turbine blades:

Surface-connected porosity in current military aircraft hot-stage turbine engine blades is associated with blade failure. Oxidation ratcheting is suggested as the failure mechanism. Sta- tistical comparison of new and used blade populations showed that for blades cast with an equiaxed structure, the porosity in new blades was associated with crack formation on the con- cave surface of the used blades. The pores did not tend to develop into cracks on the compressed (convex) surface of the blade. Insufficient suitable data on directionally solidified blades pre- vented similar statistical correlations. However, metallography of the directionally solidified blades showed that the in-service cracks were related to oxidation inside surface-connected pores and that the cracks were oriented in the same direction as the (axial) casting pores. Thus, the proposed failure mechanism through ratcheting is based on the following insights: (1) the blades are thermally cycled as a normal part of service; (2) the hot blades expand and the open pores are filled with oxide; (3) when the blade is cooled, thermal contraction of the metal is greater than the oxide, causing compressive stress and yield; and (4) thermal expansion of the blades opens the pores again, since yield relaxed compressive stress at low temperature. These insights were supported by metallographic and computer-simulation studies which showed that the pores grow 20 to 50 pct in width per 100 missions (about 90 hours of operation) for a military aircraft on a typical mission profile.