Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.

3, Issue 1) April 2004

www.ommi.co.uk


LIFE EXTENSION METHODS IN AERO-ENGINES

D P Shepherd, T J Ward, A Wisbey, B Vermeulen & A D Boyd Lee, QinetiQ Ltd, UK



Abstract

In the aerospace industry, as in many other industries, there is currently a strong interest in
maximising the utilisation of existing assets. From the perspective of aero gas turbine
engines, one of the ways this manifests itself is in the attempt to maximise component life,
either at the design stage or through in-service life extension. At the design stage, the
requirement is for improved stress analysis and life prediction techniques, which allow the
materials to be exploited to the greatest extent possible. To this end, an advanced analysis
capability for the prediction of damage accumulation in single crystals is highlighted, which
models creep, fatigue and creep-fatigue interaction for aero-engine components which may or
may not have thermal barrier coatings. For in-service life extension, two different approaches
are evident, depending on how the components are lifed. For fracture critical components,
which are hard lifed at introduction into service, a number of techniques for increasing the
safe life have been developed, which deal largely with developing improved techniques for
the analysis of the original lifing data. In contrast, the service life for components lifed on
condition can be extended through repair, using techniques such as brazing, welding, powder
laser deposition and transient liquid phase bonding. Many of the more advanced repair
methods are supported by process modelling techniques, including microstructural modelling,
to minimise the development costs associated with new repair applications.


Introduction

Throughout the aerospace sector, gas turbine engine operators are under increasing pressure to
maintain or increase performance whilst at the same time reducing costs. Within the civil
sector, the economic downturn over the last two or three years has forced airlines to reduce
margins to very low levels. At the same time, in the military sector, reducing defence budgets
are also putting fleet managers under increasing pressure to maintain availability and
operational capability whilst reducing support costs. Consequently, there is a very strong
interest in gaining maximum utilisation from the engine as a whole, and various aspects of the
fleet management process are coming under increasing scrutiny to assess whether any spare
capacity can be exploited.

One area which is being subject to ever closer scrutiny is component life. This relates both to
the initial assessment of component life, and the possibility of extracting additional life once
the components are in service. One area in particular, for which the question of life
assessment is currently of great interest is single crystal components. The complex behaviour
of this class of materials raises issues not previously addressed in stress analysis research,
which have considerable bearing on the efficiency of the designs achieved. In particular, the
accurate stress analysis of relevant components can provide significant efficiency benefits,
either from improved performance or longer life. First cost will also be reduced through
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 2
ensuring that new designs are right first time, and that metal is moved, within the design, to
those places where it is required

Moreover, the issues surrounding the in-service extension of component life have been of
considerable interest for a number of years, and several quite different techniques have been
developed. It has been demonstrated [1] that current industrial damage accumulation codes
can be inaccurate by a significant amount, affecting the life cycle cost prediction of the part,
module and engine. A fully anisotropic code for single crystal nickel alloys with
microstructural-based damage parameters [2] will be able to accurately assess the lives of new
and existing components and provide better targeted inspection management. Thus, the
application of these improved tools has a significant impact on cost of ownership.

The problems associated with in-service component life extension, on the other hand, are
dependent on the way the components are life managed. For fracture critical components,
which are hard lifed at introduction into service, the only way to extend life is to reconsider
the original life derivation itself, to see if an improved analysis is possible. For military
engines in particular, there are a number of factors that influence the life calculation, many of
which will change during the service life of the engine. In many circumstances,
understanding of factors such as material behaviour, loading and rate of life accumulation will
increase with time, allowing for more accurate assessments to be made. For condition
monitored parts, however, the possibility of component repair and refurbishment becomes
relevant, and considerable research is currently being undertaken to develop new and
optimised techniques for this purpose.


Improved life prediction analysis for single crystal components

Single crystal superalloys provide significant increases in engine performance, because they
have permitted increased turbine entry temperature levels but have also provided enhanced
component endurance and reliability. There are also possible efficiency gains to be achieved
by retrofitting single crystal blades to existing engines, due to a reduced cooling air
requirement as a consequence of a hotter running capability.

Single crystal manufacture, although now an established technique, is expensive. To obtain
the optimum performance, components need to be manufactured with the crystal aligned to a
specific orientation. High wastage, due to misalignment of the crystal or secondary crystal
growth, adds greatly to the cost. It is, therefore, of vital importance that accurate stress
analyses can be performed on component designs, as the stress analysis will provide the data
required for lifing the component. This allows more representative modelling earlier in the
design cycle so that poor designs can be discarded and promising designs can be improved.
For example, detailed design changes could be made to remove 'hot spots' and improve
performance.

Single crystal superalloys behave anisotropically under load. However, the anisotropy cannot
be defined in a conventional manner [9] by defining the material behaviour along the 3
orthogonal axes of the crystal. Indeed the behaviour of the material is such that it gives an
identical response when loaded in any of its axial directions. It is only when loaded off-axis
that the anisotropy is manifested.

Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 3
Current modelling methods used in industry combine an elastic anisotropic analysis with an
isotropic creep analysis. This is a standard option in most commercial non-linear finite
element codes. The non-linear behaviour is modelled using data from creep tests along the
axis of the crystal. The justification for this being that single crystal components are designed
such that the primary load is along the axis of the crystal. However, the assumption that this
modelling method is a good approximation only holds true if the axis of the crystal is directly
aligned with the direction of the load, and if the component being modelled contains no
features which will cause off axis loads. Conditions that will rarely, if ever, be met.

Lifing rules for high-pressure components rely on accurate predictions of stresses and strains.
These are obtained from the finite element analysis of the component under typical engine
loading. The QinetiQ anisotropic code has been designed to be used with leading commercial
finite element codes. It has recently been developed to comprise a novel combination of the
QinetiQ creep model, which includes sigmoidal creep and rafting, and a non-linear kinematic
hardening plasticity model. The resulting code has a number of innovative features and will
provide much more accurate data for lifing purposes.

The QinetiQ anisotropic slip system model will correctly simulate the single crystal material
response, whether the load is applied along one of the axes of the crystal or at some
intermediate angle. This allows a more accurate representation of the behaviour of a single
crystal component in the hot section of a jet engine. A detailed description of the code is
given in [8]. Further details and applications are given in [10,11,12].


Analysis of a model blade

A mesh of the model blade aerofoil and platform with temperature contours is shown in figure
1. The blade was made from the single crystal SRR99 material. The model was analysed for
<001> and <112> crystal orientations.

For the <001> orientation, the z-axis of the crystal [001] is aligned parallel to the aerofoil in
the axial direction of the blade, and the y-axis of the crystal [010] lies parallel to the short
edge of the blade platform.

For the <112> crystal orientation, the axial direction of the blade had the crystal orientation [-
1,1,2] and the short edge of the blade platform had the crystal orientation [1-6/2, 1+6/2, 1].

The <001> analysis was completed for both the isotropic creep and anisotropic creep material
models. The <112> analysis was only modelled using anisotropic creep. The creep parameters
required for the isotropic analysis were obtained from a creep test matrix on <001>
specimens. For the anisotropic analyses both <001> and <111> creep test results were
required.

The blade was loaded using a 60-second ramp up to full load (centrifugal and pressure loads)
and then held at full load for one hour. During the loading, the blade was raised from room
temperature to the distributed temperature at full load.

The results are plotted on a cross-section of the blade aerofoil approximately 1/3 of the
distance up the aerofoil from the platform.
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 4

Figure 1 Model Turbine Blade


Figure 2 Von Mises stresses (Pa) - horizontal section through blade



Figure 2 displays a comparison of the Von Mises stress contour for the isotropic and
anisotropic analyses for the <001> crystal orientation and the anisotropic analysis for the
<112> crystal orientation. The Von Mises stress is used for the lifing of components and
shows where problems may occur. This figure shows marked differences in the intensity and
distribution of the Von Mises stresses for the isotropic and anisotropic <001> analyses. The

Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 5
<112> analysis shows the ability of the anisotropic model to predict a markedly different
stress distribution for an off-axis crystal orientation. It shows that the larger the Von Mises
stresses, the redder parts of the contour plot, are more widely distributed for this orientation.

Figure 3 Creep Damage - horizontal section through blade

Figure 3 displays the corresponding comparison of creep damage contours for the 3 analyses.
Showing the life limiting parts of the component under creep. Creep damage being calculated
as the absolute magnitude of the creep strain. The highest creep damage for the anisotropic
<001> analysis is again more widely spread and at different locations to the isotropic analysis,
with the maximum damage being concentrated at the trailing edge. The creep damage contour
for the <112> analysis indicates that the creep damage is severe and widespread for this
crystal orientation and the component would not be expected to have a very long life.


Remarks

The analyses of the model blade in both the <001> crystalline orientation and the <112> off-
axis crystal orientation, shows significant differences between the predictions of the isotropic
and anisotropic creep models.

For the <001> analysis, the differences arise from the geometric features, such as the cooling
holes. These features cause the crystal to be loaded off-axis locally, thereby provoking an
anisotropic response that the isotropic creep model is not designed to simulate.

The off axes analysis of the model turbine blade, figures 2 and 3, shows how important the
orientation of the crystal is with respect to the component and its primary load direction. The
<112> Anisotropic
Creep Model
<001> Anisotropic
Creep Model
<001> Isotropic
Creep Model
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 6
deterioration of its creep resistance capability, under this inappropriate orientation, is apparent
when comparing the creep damage contours of the <001> and <112> analyses.

Reliable predictions for off-axis loading are vital if accurate tolerances are to be set for the
orientation of components. This has the potential of huge savings if wastage caused by
unnecessarily tight tolerances can be avoided.

This simple creep analysis has demonstrated the necessity of using an anisotropic code for the
analysis of single crystal components. Meaningful lifing of these components will only be
possible if the stresses can be calculated accurately. QinetiQ have developed an anisotropic
code capable of calculating the creep and creep-fatigue interaction in a single crystal
component. The code uses damage parameters based on the condition at the microscopic
level. Current research centres on the development of a more sophisticated damage model that
includes oxidation.


Fracture critical part life extension

For fracture critical components, defined as those components whose failure represents a
hazard to the entire aircraft, airworthiness requirements demand that the service life is
determined to ensure the probability of such a failure is very low (depending on the
application, this will typically be between 10
-6
to 10
-8
). However, unlike ground based gas
turbines, the requirement to minimise weight means that these criterion cannot simply be met
by designing for infinite life. Rather, component design will necessarily represents a
compromise between weight and available service life, which is acceptable both from the
point of view of the performance requirements and the maintenance scheduling. As a result,
the calculation of the service life, which forms a critical part of this optimisation process, is
required to be as accurate as possible. Ultimately, this means that the intent of the design
process is to ensure that the opportunities for in service component life extension are
negligible.

In reality, it is rarely, if ever, the case that extensions to the fracture critical component life
are sought purely on the basis of potential cost reduction. However, it is almost always the
case that experience gained during the service life of an engine fleet will cause, or provide,
the opportunity to reassess the original lifing calculations. There are a number of ways in
which this can happen. For example, considering that the life of an engine fleet will typically
be between 20 and 40 years, it is highly likely that the understanding of the behaviour of the
materials from which the components are made will improve. This may either result in a
realisation that there are aspects of the material behaviour not properly accounted for in the
original models, which impose additional restrictions on life, or that these models were too
restrictive and that the original life was overly conservative. Similarly, it has been the case
over the past 30-50 years (and is likely to continue to be the case in the near future) that the
stress analysis techniques used to determine the component loads undergo a dramatic increase
in power and fidelity during the life of the fleet. In many circumstances, this has led to a re-
evaluation of the stress and strain distribution, which can again lead either to an increase or a
decrease in available component life. Other factors, which can have a similar effect, include,
in the military context, re-evaluation of the exchange rates used to define the relationship
between flying hours and consumed fatigue cycles, which under conventional RAF fleet
management practice are notoriously unstable.

Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 7
It is the net result of these and other factors, which means that the service life of fracture
critical parts, far from being fixed at entry into service, will, in reality, be continually
evolving throughout the fleet life. Whilst there are safeguards built into the regulations for
releasing component life, which are designed to negate or minimise the negative impact of
this evolution, it is not uncommon for the service life of a fracture critical part to be reduced
whilst in service. In this circumstance, it may well be the case that service engines contain
parts that have exceeded their service life, and the actions required to rectify this situation
may impose high financial penalties and/or very undesirable operational limitations. In this
situation, methods that allow for an upward revision of the component life become extremely
important.

Whilst a positive re-evaluation of one of the factors discussed above may cancel out a
negative revision of one of the others, clearly this cannot be relied upon to provide the desired
result. What are required are generic techniques, which provide a method for reassessing the
life that will result in increased life. Whilst there are no known techniques that are guaranteed
to do this, QinetiQ has developed several approaches, which will necessarily, or probably,
give rise to a life increase if they are applicable in a given situation. These techniques all
involve taking advantage of unspecified, or weakly specified, aspects of the component life
calculation procedure and, if used in combination, will usually allow for an alleviation, and
sometimes a total negation, of the fleet management consequences surrounding a component
life cut.

The most commonly employed technique is to assess the risks associated with allowing over
life components to stay in service, either until such time as they can be removed on an
opportunistic basis, or their removal can be scheduled with minimal impact to the operation of
the fleet. Considered in the context of RAF fleet management practice, this approach
becomes possible since, firstly, the lifing regulations generally do not specify the exact level
of risk imposed through the utilisation of specific calculation procedures, and secondly, the
RAF manages its fleets on the basis of a fully specified Hazard Risk Index (HRI). The HRI is
an example of a commonly used tool in the management of complex engineering systems, and
specifies levels of acceptable risk associated with the events of a particular severity [3]. In
the case of fracture critical parts, for example, a risk of failure per engine flying hour smaller
than 10
-6
is considered acceptable, those between 10
-5
and 10
-6
require management action to
reduce the risks, and those above 10
-5
must be mitigated immediately (for twin engined
combat aircraft - different HRIs apply for other categories of application). By directly
assessing the risk associated with individual over life components, an overall risk figure can
be obtained for the fleet, which can then be compared to the HRI limit. Since the risks
associated with the direct life calculation procedures are generally lower than those in the HRI
(typically between 10
-7
and 10
-8
), this often provides a sufficient window to allow the
situation to be managed out with minimal impact.

There are, however, a number of difficulties associated with calculating the risk level at a
particular component life. For example, calculating the risk at all will normally involve
making assumptions regarding the fatigue life behaviour, beyond crack initiation, of the
material and component involved. This is because traditional lifing methods only consider
life to crack initiation, whereas the risk is the probability associated with failure (or at least
dysfunction). Such assumptions need to be carefully considered, to ensure that the assumed
behaviour is as realistic as possible, whilst ensuring that it is unlikely to be optimistic.
Secondly, for military engines, there is the added complication that the exchange rates will be
higher in the crack propagation phase of life consumption than in the crack initiation phase.
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 8
This must also be taken into account in the correct way if the derived figures are to give
reliable results. Moreover, whilst the risks in the HRI are quoted as the fleet average
probability of failure per flying hour, this is difficult to interpret in the context of fracture
critical part failure, since the risk of failure is increasing with life consumed. For this reason,
it has been proposed [4] that both instantaneous and cumulative risk measured should be used
in assessing risks associated with fracture critical part lives, and this approach is now applied
in practical risk evaluation exercises.

A completely different method of life extension is concerned with an assumption that is built
into the traditional safe life method of component life derivation. This method gives a
procedure for deriving a safe service life (defined as being the life at which not more than
1/750 components will have initiated a crack, to 95% confidence

) to the initiation of an
engineering crack. An engineering crack being defined as one of 0.75mm surface length, or
0.38mm radius. This method thus includes an additional safety margin, in that the amount of
time taken to grow the crack from initiation to failure is not explicitly accounted for. Under
the conventional assumption that the crack propagation life is 50% of the initiation life (as
would generally be the case for a crack at the bore of a disc manufactured from a conventional
disc alloy), the method gives an overall probability of failure in the region of 10
-7
to 10
-8
, as
quoted above. Since this satisfies the basic airworthiness requirements, the method is
adequate given this assumption holds. However, it can be the case, particularly where cracks
are initiated at a stress raiser and subsequently grow into a decreasing stress field, that the
crack propagation life can be considerably in excess of this, and can actually be many times
the initiation life. In these circumstances, the traditional method is highly conservative, and
there is scope for life extension, as long as a suitable means of quantifying and accounting for
the crack propagation life can be identified. Such methods have been developed [5], and are
currently applied in a number of service situations.

A further method results from close scrutiny of the statistical procedures utilised in the life
derivation within the traditional safe life procedure. In UK practice, component lives are
declared solely on the basis of full scale component rig tests, the results being converted to
safe lives by dividing them by statistically defined safety factors. These factors are derived
on the assumption that the component fatigue life distribution follows a specific model,
namely, that the distribution is lognormal with a standard deviation of 0.1289 (under a log to
the base 10 transformation). The statistics associated with this model can easily be derived
analytically, as long as the rig test results are all run to actual crack initiation. It is often the
case in practice, however, that, due to the high cost of running rig tests of this kind, the test is
stopped prior to the initiation of a crack. This results in some of the data points in the sample
being incomplete or non-finite (in classical statistical terminology, such results are called
censored), in that all that is known about the crack initiation life is that it is higher than the
test result obtained. This is much harder to deal with statistically, and the traditional method
for working with this type of result was to assume that the crack initiation life was given by
the acquired test life plus 1 cycle. Whilst this provides a means of incorporating the result
into the calculations, it is clearly conservative, in that the probability of the crack initiating in
the very next cycle is extremely small. In view of this, QinetiQ have developed statistical
techniques for integrating these non-finite results in a consistent way, which takes account
of the incompleteness of the result by using the fact that it and any other results in the sample
are all drawn from the same parent population [6]. Such techniques have again been
successfully applied in practice, and have been found to yield life extensions of up to 30%.

Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 9
A further method for fracture critical part life extension, developed recently in the USA,
exploits recent improvements in the modelling of materials behaviour and, in particular, the
fatigue behaviour associated with certain materials [7]. This stems from the fact that, for
some materials, the observed fatigue life distribution is found to consist of more than one
family, or population, of results. These different populations are found to be associated with
different crack initiation behaviour at the microstructural level, although the exact cause of
this behaviour is not fully understood at present. For lifing calculations, which have been
conducted on the basis that the overall distribution is representative of typical material
behaviour, life extension becomes possible because the width of the constituent distributions
is much smaller than that of both combined. Consequently, the statistical factors that need to
be applied to calculate a safe life from the mean behaviour are smaller than would otherwise
have been calculated. Whilst this method has the potential to yield significant life reductions,
it is only applicable in situations where the component life is derived on the basis of specimen
results, rather than rig tests, and has the disadvantage that large numbers of results are
required to properly discern whether different populations are present in the overall fatigue
behaviour. However, since engine manufacturers will generally derive such large databases
of results within their basic material characterisation programmes, this is not necessarily
difficult to overcome.

Finally, it should be mentioned that there has been a strong effort in recent years, to develop
methods which would allow for aero engine fracture critical components to be lifed on an on-
condition basis, rather than with the traditional hard life procedures currently employed [8].
Although this would provide very large life extensions were such methods to become widely
accepted and available, it is unlikely that this will happen in the near future. The fundamental
difficulty with this approach is that it requires the availability of monitoring techniques which
can reliably detect very small cracks (typically of the order of a millimetre), in rotating
structures of large mass operating in an extremely noisy environment. Although a significant
amount of effort has been dedicated to developing such methods, none has been brought to
the point of application, and even if one were developed it would almost certainly require
very sophisticated sensing and detection systems, which would be far too expensive to install
on most existing engines. Consequently, whilst the ability to life manage fracture critical
parts in this way promises to revolutionise fleet management practice, it can only be
considered as a long-term research objective.


Repair techniques for non fracture critical parts

For non-fracture critical parts, the end of useful service life is usually assessed using some
form of inspection, together with predefined criteria designed to create a balance between
maximising life and avoiding potentially costly failures. However, such criteria tend to be
based on relatively crude assessments of component condition, and little is understood about
how these relate to continuing damage accumulation and ultimate failure. In these
circumstances, the possibility of repairing the components becomes attractive, if suitable
techniques can be developed.

It is essential that prior to the introduction of any repair scheme that the remnant lives of
components under consideration are assessed. For fracture critical parts, this is generally not a
problem because of the life tracking exercise, however, for non-critical parts this is can be
more difficult. The major components requiring remnant life assessment are turbine blades.
This assessment can take a number of forms, including extraction of mechanical test pieces
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 10
from used components, examination of microstructural indicators or the use of non-
destructive evaluation techniques.

Figure 4. Test piece cut from low pressure turbine blade of military aircraft engine.

An example of the extraction of test pieces from components for mechanical testing at
QinetiQ is shown in figure 4. The anisotropic blade analysis (as above) has indicated the
variation in damage at different locations and thus any sample extraction must account for
this, and ensure that the test piece includes some of the most highly damaged material. For
turbine blades a major area of interest is the creep behaviour, thus such samples can be used
to assess the post service creep behaviour and the above creep lifing model can then used to
determine the remaining blade life. Clearly, the fatigue behaviour needs to be considered,
along with the effects of any surface coating (whether it be for oxidation resistance or thermal
barrier). This type of data of is also required to validate microstructural indicators of remnant
life and any non-destructive evaluation techniques. There has been considerable development
activity on the use of microstructural indicators for life assessment of the bulk material of
turbine blades [13,14], especially for industrial engines. These techniques use changes in the
microstructure with time at temperature, for example the size of the (Ni
3
Al) phase in cast
nickel alloys. Measurements of such features become more reliable over the longer times
seen by industrial turbines (10,000 30,000 hours) and thus are less applicable in the
aerospace field. In addition, to the changes in the bulk material, there has also been
significant effort expended in tracking the life of coatings (e.g. aluminising, MCrAlY or
Thermal Barrier Coatings) on hot gas path components, using microstructural indicators
associated with the inter-diffusion of elements between the bulk alloy and the coating. The
use of non-destructive evaluation for remnant life assessment is a developing field and has
exciting potential for speeding up the necessary determinations but requires a substantial
validation effort prior to implementation.

Once the issue of remnant life has been considered then the determination of the most
appropriate repair technology must be undertaken. In this brief review we will limit the
consideration to those issues which both industrial and aerospace experience. Thus issues like
foreign object damage of compressor blades is of less importance for industrial engines, than
in the aerospace industry, especially military engines.

Much expense can be incurred because of the thermal and mechanical damage inflicted on
parts like turbine blades and vanes. This damage can be in the form of oxidative attack of
aerodynamic surfaces or cracking. Currently such damage is repaired using conventional
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 11
welding techniques (e.g. tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding) and brazing. Such approaches to
repair can limit the success of the repair because of incompatibility with basic metallurgical
behaviour (e.g. strain age cracking, grain boundary liquation cracking and solidification
cracking in some nickel superalloys) or a reduction in mechanical performance (many brazes
have limited strength). Where such problems inhibit the repair of expensive components, then
alternative technologies must be sought.

Over the last few years, a number of new repair technologies have been and are being
developed to overcome the problems highlighted above. Three new or recent approaches will
be briefly considered here advanced brazing, enhanced fusion welding and metal deposition
techniques.

Figure 5. Micro-section through a cast cobalt alloy airfoil section with significant proportion
of braze repair on the surface.

As noted above, the strength of braze repairs is often much lower than that of the parent
material being repaired. This is especially important when substantial amounts of the parent
material are being replaced, as shown in figure 5. As a result of this limitation, one
development has produced a reportedly high strength brazed joint [15]. This process uses a
two part material/process. The first is a high melting point metal powder in an organic binder
that mimics the parent material and is placed in the region to be repaired. During processing
this material is sintered and the organic binder burnt off to provide some initial strength.
Following this, the temperature is then raised to that of the low melting temperature material.
This second portion is placed above the high melting point material and once melted in the
second stage of processing it infiltrates the first sintered material. This enhances the creep life
of the overall repair, compared with conventional brazing, but it is still lower than the parent
material by ~45x at 920C. Despite this the creep rupture life of this braze is higher than
could be achieved using IN625 filler and fusion welding. A further advantage of this type of
approach is the ability to fill large gaps, up to 10 mm wide.

Transient liquid phase braze repair is another process which is continuing to see further
development. This again uses a melting point depressant (often boron, or silicon) in the braze
alloy but once the basic brazing has been completed the component continues to be held at
high temperature to permit the depressant elements to be diffused away from the interface.
This changes the interface chemistry, raising the interface melting point and makes the joint
fit for service at high temperatures. There are some potential drawbacks in the formation of
borides or silicides, which may embrittle the parent material if formed. However, other
melting point depressants are under active consideration, which may avoid these problems
and ease the application of the melting point depressant to the joint region. This type of
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 12
approach offers the potential for repairing single crystal and directionally solidified nickel
alloy components, with the large attendant cost savings attached, compared to the replacement
with new parts, which may cost ~0.7M for a full blade set for a single stage of a large
industrial turbine. Thus even if the repair is 50% of the cost of new parts, it still represents a
considerable saving.

There have been ongoing developments in fusion welding techniques over many years and a
couple of the most applicable for repair applications have been the micro-plasma and the
plasma transferred arc systems. Both of these approaches produce a fine beam of plasma (i.e.
the welding heat source), which limits the size of the heat affected zone (HAZ) and thus the
potential for high residual stresses arising from large heat inputs. Such processes are attractive
but the basic metallurgical effects noted above may limit the usefulness of these processes for
nickel alloy components.

The metal deposition technologies, using either laser or electron beam (EB) heat sources
appear to hold some promise for overcoming these basic metallurgical limits for nickel alloys
by providing very high cooling rates and small molten zones, in comparison with
conventional fusion welding techniques like TIG. A schematic of one of these systems is
shown in figure 6. These systems deposit metal in a layer-by-layer fashion, using either metal
powder or wire as feedstock and a laser beam or EB source to melt it. The part to be repaired
is traversed under the beam whilst melting the feedstock onto the surface of the component.
There are a number of commercial systems now available, however, significant development
work is ongoing to validate the integrity of repairs made in this way. Of these systems, the
laser based approach is probably the most developed, although the EB based method offers
some promise. Depending on the deposition parameters and material used, the microstructure
of deposits made in this fashion can be controlled. Thus by ensuring high temperature
gradients around the deposit directionally solidified, or even single crystal, material growth is
possible [16].


Figure 6. Schematic of a powder blown laser deposition system.
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 13

With titanium alloys it is difficult to avoid this directional solidification (figure 7), however,
with nickel alloys this requires careful control of the process.


Figure 7. Large columnar growth in a titanium alloy deposited using powder feedstock and
laser melting.

It has been claimed that laser powder deposition processes can produce mechanical properties
equivalent to wrought products and is some cases this may be possible. However, excellent
process control is required and there is considerable evidence of property debits [17,18],
particularly poor tensile ductility. What these studies tend to suggest is that further
optimisation of the deposition conditions is required, since recent studies are starting to show
good fatigue performance in titanium alloy component repairs [19].

The metal deposition technologies offer great flexibility in their application, with the
potential, for example, to replace badly oxidised aerodynamic surfaces on turbine blades and
vanes with parent material, rather than the current brazed surfaces. However, for each
application there will be an economic contribution to the decision on the repair technology
selected, alongside the technical case. The cost of these deposition systems is currently very
high, and this may limit their availability. Thus, these deposition technologies will find their
niche and offer an extension of repair to components or situations that are currently not
feasible.


Summary

Current drivers in the aerospace industry are putting an ever-increasing emphasis on reducing
costs, both in the civil and military contexts. As a result, one area, which is becoming
increasingly important, is component life prediction and life extension In this paper, a
number of technologies relating to these topics, which are currently being developed for aero
engine application, have been reviewed. Firstly, an advanced stress analysis capability for
modelling single crystal turbine blades has been highlighted, which models both plastic, creep
and creep fatigue behaviour in a fully anisotropic fashion. Next, a number of different
methods, which have been developed to provide life extensions for fracture critical parts, are
discussed. These mostly seek to refine different assumptions made in the standard life
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 14
calculation procedures. Finally, life extension for non-fracture critical parts, through the
application of advanced repair techniques, is discussed.


References

1. P Brown and T J Ward, A comparison of the Isotropic and Anisotropic
Creep Behaviour of a Single Crystal Test Specimen, DERA Report,
DERA/MSS/MSMA1/CR003609, 2000.
2. T J Ward and B Vermeulen, Anisotropic modelling of Creep and Plasticity
for Single Crystal turbine components, Proceedings of the 9th CEAS
Propulsion Forum, October, 2003.
3. Gp Cpt J K Meagher and Sqn Ldr L Jones, The Challenge of Managing the
Logistic Support of Combat Engines in the Royal Air Force, Proceedings of
the RTO ATV Panel Symposium Gas Turbine Operation and Technology
for Land, Sea and Air Propulsion and Power Systems, RTO-MP-34, 2000.
4. A D Boyd Lee and D P Shepherd, Risk Assessment Methodologies for
Fracture Critical Components, Proceedings of the RTO ATV panel
Symposium Monitoring and Management of Gas Turbine Fleets for
Extended Life and Reduced Cost, RTO-MP-079(1), 2003.
5. G F Harrison, D P Shepherd and A D Boyd Lee, Life Extension Procedures
for Damage Tolerant Fracture Critical Parts-2, DRA report No
DRA/SMC/CR942027/1, May 1994
6. A D Boyd Lee, G F Harrison, The Development of Life Extension Methods
for Fracture Critical Aero-Engine Components, Proceedings of the RTO
ATV panel Symposium Qualification of Life Extension Schemes for Engine
Components, RTO-MP-17, 1999.
7. S K Jha, Role of Competing Mechanisms in the Variability in Fatigue Life
and Consequences on Probabilistic Life Prediction, 9
th
National Turbine
Engine High Cycle Fatigue Conference,
www.hcf.utcdayton.com/pages/presentations, 2004
8. W C Haase and J K Roberge, Detection and Characterisation of Blade/Disc
Cracks in Operational Turbine Engines, IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2003
9. R Hill, The Mathematical Theory of Plasticity, Oxford University Press,
1983.
10. T J Ward, M B Henderson and G F Harrison, Application of the DERA slip
system model to the Finite Element stress analysis of Single Crystal
Material, DERA Report DERA/MSS2/TR990560, 2000.
11. M B Henderson and T J Ward, The development of a single crystal creep
model for the analysis of turbine blade applications, Eds. Evans W.J. / R W
Evans and M R Bache, Component Optimisation from Material Properties
and Simulations Software, COMPASS 1999, Proceedings of the 1
st

International Conference on Component Optimisation, March 29 April 1,
University of Wales, Swansea, United Kingdom, 1999.
12. T Homewood, T J Ward, M B Henderson and G F Harrison, The DERA Slip
System Law for Modelling Face Centred Cubic Single Crystal Material
Behaviour, Eds. A Strang and M McLean, Modelling of Microstructural
Life Extension Methods in Aero-Engines OMMI (Vol.3, Issue 1) April 2004 15
Evaluation in Creep Resistant Materials, Series: Microstructure of High
Temperature Materials, No. 3, 1999.
13. I. Di Martino and R.C. Thomson, Microstructural Evolution in Coated
Single Crystal Nickel-Based Superalloys, Proceedings of the Sixth
International Charles Parsons Turbine Conference, A. Strang, R.D. Conroy,
W.M. Banks, M. Blackler, J. Leggett, G.M. McColvin, S. Simpson, M.
Smith, F. Starr and R.W. Vanstone editors, IOM Communications Ltd., UK,
2003, pp899-912.
14. Y. Yoshioka, N. Okabe, T. Okamura, D. Saito, K. Fujiyama and H.
Kashiwaya, Service Temperature Estimation for Heavy Duty Gas Turbine
Buckets Based on Microstructure Change, Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Superalloys, M. Gell, C.S. Kortovich, R.H. Bricknell, W.B.
Kent and J.F. Radavich editors, TMS, 1996, pp173-179.
15. R.Sparling, J.Liburdi, Liburdi powder metallurgy, applications for
manufacture and repair of gas turbine components, Proceedings of the Sixth
International Charles Parsons Turbine Conference, A. Strang, R.D. Conroy,
W.M. Banks, M. Blackler, J. Leggett, G.M. McColvin, S. Simpson, M.
Smith, F. Starr and R.W. Vanstone editors, IOM Communications Ltd., UK,
2003, pp987-1005.
16. M.Gaumann, S.Henry, F.Cleton, J-D.Wagniere, W.Kurz, Epitaxial laser
forming: analysis of microstructure formation, Mat. Sci. & Eng., A271,
1999, pp232-241.
17. P.L.Blackwell, A.Wisbey, Laser aided technologies; their application to the
near net shape forming of a high strength titanium alloy, to be published,
2004.
18. P.L.Blackwell, The mechanical and microstructural characteristics of laser
deposited IN718, to be published 2004.
19. P.L.Blackwell, QinetiQ, private communication, 2004.