Thermal Gradient Mechanical Fatigue Assessment of a Nickel-Based Superalloy

Tsinghua University, School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing 100084, China

^* Corresponding author: yuan.huang@tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract

Turbine components generally work under thermomechanical loading conditions with varying temperature and significant temperature gradients. In the present work, a radiation heating system was developed to simulate thermal gradient mechanical fatigue (TGMF) loads in turbines. The specimen is externally heated by radiation and internally cooled by compressed air. Experiments showed that the TGMF life of the nickel-based superalloy is significantly shorter than that of the thermomechanical and the isothermal fatigue, although the thermal stress amplitude related to the temperature gradient is small. It was confirmed that the conventional fatigue models generated seriously deviations and could not catch effects of thermal gradients. The modified TGMF model introduced a correction term of the temperature gradient effects and can describe the TGMF lifetime of Inconel 718 reasonably. The new model provides a uniform description of isothermal and complex thermomechanical fatigue.