Low-Cycle Fatigue Behaviour of Gas Turbine Alloys

Abstract

The low-cycle fatigue characteristics of an 11 per cent chromium steel, two nickel alloys and two titanium alloys have been studied in the range 20° to 500°C. For repeated-tension stress tests on all the materials, there was a sharp break in the stress-endurance curve between 103 and 104 cycles. The high stress failures were attributed to cyclic creep contributing to the development of internal cavities. At lower stresses, failures occurred through the growth of fatigue cracks initiated at the material surface. The whole fatigue curve could be represented by an expression developed from linear damage assumptions. Data for different temperatures and types of stress concentration were correlated by expressing stress as a fraction of the static strength. Repeated-tensile strain cycling data were represented on a stress-endurance diagram and it was shown that they correlated with push-pull stress cycles at high stresses and repeated-tension at low stresses. In general, the compressive phase tended to accentuate cyclic creep so that ductile failures occurred at proportionally lower stresses. Changes in frequency from 1 to 100 cycle/min were shown to have no significant effect on low-cycle fatigue behaviour.