APPLICATION OF FRACTURE MECHANICS IN THE FAILURE ANALYSIS OF A LAST STAGE STEAM TURBINE BLADE J.S. RAOt Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technotogy. New Dethi-110 016, India (Received 31 May 1996: in sevised form 10 March 1997) Absteact—This paper describes the application of fracture mechanics prineiples in the failure investigation ‘of a last stage steam turbine blade of the nuclear power plant at Narora in India. The maschine fled im the early morning hours on 31 March, 1993. The failed parts include two bearings and several blades {nthe fifth stage of flow path 2 of LP turbine. Blade #52 inthis stage revealed three clear zones of fracture, the frst with a crack initiating at the steain raiser point and propagating at a low rate, a second where the blade was subjected to multiple Impacts sith initiation of fresh cracks and propagating at high rates land the third one opasisting of unstable Fracture. Stress Intensity Factor approach is used to ientiy the three crack zones and establish the mechanism of the machine failure. NOMENCLATURE o—erack length nq —aveage crack length final eral length ive notch length for crac initiation tion spacing ‘equation (0) stress intensity factor K fracture toughness ‘Rstress ratio ponatch radius co Maximoen sts yield strength a—inetement in crack propagating length AK—siress intensity factor range AKi—stress intensity factor in plane strain for Mode 1 Aka—threshold stress intensity factor for crack propagation ‘AN—number of cyckes for erack propagating length Aa ‘do-stress range daan—st 1, INTRODUCTION Blade failure is a common experience in power plants using steam or gas turbines. Once in a while, these failures form a part of major incidents. On 19 November 1968, RMS “Queen Elizabeth 2” suffered HP turbine blade failures during its maiden voyage from Tail O° the Bank, resulting in complete damage to the Sth stage starboard HP turbine rotor and the 9th stage port HP turbine rotor, Fleeting and Coats [1]. Another major accident occurred on 22 August, 1977, after a major overhaul of a 600 MW turbo-set in Porcheville, France, where the last stage blades failed, see Frank [2]. This paper is concerned with the failure of the last stage 235 MW steam turbine blades in a nuclear power plant in Narora, India on 31 March 1993. Since blade failures are predominantly vibration related, blade vibration studies have acquired considerable importance and a good deal of work on the determination of naturat frequencies and $99600 JS. Rao. mode shapes has been contributed by several research workers, see Rao (3]. Large steam turbines employ thousands of blades ranging from a few centimetres in height in the HP turbines to almost one meter long blades in the last stages of LP turbines. As a result, blade natural frequencies in a machine can be as low as 100 HZ in the last stages of LP rotors and over a few thousand Hz in the first stages of HP rotors. One stage or other is critical near the operating range with either the per-rev or nozzle passing harmonics. The last stage blades being the longest blades are most severely loaded under the centrifugal forces. The dynamic loads on the blading can arise from many sources, the most predominant one being the excitation from the nozzles. When a rotor blade passes across the nozzles of a stator, it experiences fluctuating lift and moment forces repeatedly at a frequency given by the number of nozzles multiplied by the speed of the machine. This gives rise to excitation at a higher multiple ‘of the machine speed and is commonly the source of problem of HP biades. The nozzle excitation is more an aerodynamic phenomenon and the forces can be estimated by unsteady aerodynamic theories, see Rao [4]. The magnitude of these forces can be as high as 20% of steady loading for stator blades and around 10% for rotor blades. For LP blades, whose natural frequencies are relatively low, the engine order excitation due to non-uniform spacing of the diaphragms plays in important role. It is important to know the magnitude of the excitation force so as to be able to compute the magnitudes of the dynamic stresses. The engine order excitation forces are usually ‘obtained from tests and the magnitude of this excitation force is not more than 2% of the steady loading. Fatigue failures are governed by a combination of the steady and dynamic stresses. It is usually the steady centrifugal loads that are the highest, particularly for the LP stage blading, that determine the limiting stress. The steady steam bending stresses are very small in comparison to the centrifugal stresses. However, the dynamic stresses of the blades when they pass through resonance are quite high, even though the exciting force magnitude is not that high. This is because of very low damping in the blades and the quality factors can be as high as 100 or more. Hence, damping plays an important role in determining the dynamic stresses. Blade damping is a highly complex phenomena, see Rao [3], and therefore experimental means are required to estimate these values. Tests to determine the damping characteristics of rotating blades are described by Rao et al. {5]. It is the dynamic stress under resonance combined with the centrifugal steady stress that determines the fatigue life of a blade in a steam turbine. Determination of these stresses in the blade vane portion is illustrated by Rao and Vyas|6]. Fatigue theories are now well established, see Shigley and Mischke [7]. SN and mean stress diagrams can be coupled to define the fatigue failure surface of a machine element, one such recent advancement is due to Bagci [8] who proposed a fourth order failure surface. Vyas and Rao {9] proposed a life estimation procedure for turbine blades using transient stresses of a turbine blade going through resonance with the help of Bagci model. Fracture initiation usually takes place at a strain riser point, particularly, if there is a material defect and/or manufacturing blemish at this location. The life for fracture initiation somewhat compares well with the cumulative damage life from failure surface theories. Once fracture initiation takes place, it can propagate when the dynamic stress is above a certain threshold value and the propagation laws are now fairly well established, see Paris and Erdogan (10). The fracture propagation takes place until the material becomes unstable. The methods of determining fracture initiation, propagation and final failure under unstable conditions are very weil described by Barsom and Rolfe (111, Suresh [12] amongst others and they have given extensive experimental results for martensitic steels. Vyas and Rao [13] used the fracture mechanics approach to illustrate a procedure to determine the life of a blade. 2. THE ACCIDENT AND THE FAILED BLADE The machine under question is a 236 MW nuclear turbine with onc single flow HP and one double flow LP cylinder. There are five stages in the HP cylinder and five stages in each flow path of the LP cylinder. A schematic lay out of the machine is given in Fig. 1. Bearings 4 and 5 are mounted in the same housing. The machine has put in 16,264 h of operation at the time of failure which took place in the carly hours of 31 March 1993.Application of fracture mechanics in failure analysis sor Flow Path Fig. 1. Arrangement of 236 MW tusbo-generator set. The accident seemed to have coincided with an electrical unbalance in line 4 1R, the fault current by itself being quite small, about 300 A (Tull load rating 800 A), A huge fire with bright yellow-red flame was observed and a nearby earthquake laboratory recorded seismic activity during the turbine stopping period. Figure 2 shows a redrawn plot of the speed versus time during this period. The fuiled parts during the accident include 16 blades of LP rear last stage. Out of these, blade #52 failed at the location where the blade root V-groove comes in contact with rotor disc top, the rest of them being consequential failures, In addition to the blades, LP rear and Generator front bearings both have failed. LP rear bearing, Brg. #4 broke into eight pieces. The blades in question ate 12-14% Cr martensitic stainless steel. The tast stage blades, 98 em long, are provided with lacing rods, each rod passing through boles of two successive blades. The failed root of blade #52 showed clearly the fractured surface, which is sketched in Fig. 3 ‘The fractured surface could be divided into three distinct zones: © Zone 1—Primary fatigue fracture, where the crack propagated ia a continuous manner after initiation at the sharp corner on the trailing edge. The striation spacing in this zone is 0.1-0.3 um. 300 2800. 200 1806 Time 9.91.39. 2.91.49 3.91.59 3.92.08 aazse 331 Fig. 2. Speed in cpm during the coast down period of the acvident02 1.8. Rao, striation spacing Zone IL Overload Fracture Fresh Cracks striation spacing 05 to 0.3 microns Crock Initiation Fig. 2. Three zones of fracture in blade #52. © Zone IlSecondary fatigue fracture, where there were multiple fracture initiations on the trailing as well as leading edges of the blade. The striation spacing in this zone is 8-12 zm. ‘© Zone Ell—Final overload fracture. The vibration record of the LP rear and generator front end bearing (both located in the same housing} of the previous evening prior to the machine failure, redrawn for presentation, is shown in Fig. 4. From this record of vibration levels it is clear that the bearing is jumping in axial as well as horizontal directions indicating that there is a sufficient amount of looseness in this bearing assembly. From Fig, 2, it can also be seen that the rotor during coast down, taking about 30 s, went through a hover around 1100 rpm, before coming to a sudden grinding halt. 3. BLADE ROOT STRESSES The blade in question is modeled by 20 noded brick elements. The vane portion of the blade has 248 elements. The root including the bridge is modeled with 2720 elements. MSC-NASTRAN is used to determine the natural frequencies, mode shapes, and resonant stresses, see Rao et al. [14]. The first bending mode of the blade with airfoil alone at 3000 rpm is found to be 113.3 Hz. The Dlade however is not completely fixed at the root, the deformations at the blade-disk junction make it flexible. This root flexibility reduces the natural frequencies and the first mode taken to decrease by 3-4%, Taking this into account, the first mode frequency 113.3 Hz can be assumed to reduce to 109.5 Hz. Steady stresses in the radial direction (for Mode I erack configuration) at the root are determined from the FEM analysis due to centrifugal load and steady steam bending. The steam bending wy 200 8 Dashed Une - Bearing #5 Axial 5 Full (ine ~ Bearing #5 Horizontal = 200 ' i plo 5 i i gm ! ‘fh h g Lh > T T we 61900: l wens 08.30 Tine in Hours: Fig. 4. Vibration level record of bearing #5.‘Application of fracture mechanics in failure analysis 03 stresses are found to be negligible in comparison to the centrifugal loads. Average stress at the notch section of the first land is found to be 318 MPa. 4. CRACK INITIATION Referring to Fig. 3, the crack initiation is clearly observed at the sharp comer of the trailing edge of the blade root. For such a fatigue crack to initiate, we can use local stress-strain approach, see [13]. Though the procedures to determine the crack initiation are somewhat established, it becomes difficult in practice to apply them to a complicated geometry such as the present case. Itis more appropriate therefore to adopt Siress Intensity Factor approach (o estimate the required loading, see Barsom and Rolfe[11] for crack initiation. The specification of blade material composition is c 0.06-0.15 Si Maximum 0.60 Mn Maximum 1.0 cr 10.5-13.0 Ni 1S-35 Mo. 10-20 v Maximum 0.4 Nb Maximum 0.4 Ss Maximum 0.04 P Maximum 0.04 which is a typical martensitic steel. The stress intensity factor range for crack initiation in martensitic steels is characterized by (242!) = 10/0, wo ve where p is the radius of notch initiating fatigue in inches = 0.0787 (2mm) and ay is the yield strength in ksi, which for the blade material is 125 ksi (864 MPa). Hence, the stress intensity factor range for crack initiation is 1.3 ksifin 30.3 MPa,/m Q The relation between the stress intensity factor AK and the stress range Ag for crack initiation ‘in martensitic steels is given by Barsom and Rolfe (11] AK= AK = 1.12 x 0.7 x Aog/aar @) where ar is 7.15 mm = 0.281 in, For the stress intensity factor calculated above, we have 31.3 = 0.784A0,/0.2818 (4) Hence Ao = 42.49 ksi = 293 MPa Oy The stress amplitude for crack initiation is therefore 146.5 MPa. The endurance limit of the material with the conditions assumed is also same, ie. the phenomenon of initiation of a ctack after a large number of eycles of loading is akin to failure under fatigue. In other words, a minimum stress range of 293 MPa is required to initiate a crack at the notch of the first landing, unless a defect exists at this point, Under normal conditions of operation, a stress amplitude of 146.5 MPa at the blade root is not possible. However, slight variation in material properties, manufacturing blemishes, etc. may take place in practice as a stray case, which when combined on a very small percentage of blades may create a situation where cracks can generate at locations with sharp sttain concentrations. It was found608 1.8. Rao. that 41 blades of the same make around the world have experienced cracks and four of them propagated their cracks to 40 mm length in 1984 after about 19,000 h of operation. Since a clear fatigne fracture surface is observed on blade #52 with a zone I of 40 mm length, it is reasonable to assume that a crack was initiated on this blade much earlier. 5, FINITE-INITIATION-LIFE Crack initiation can occur at a finite number of cycles of load due to stresses much larger than those considered above. Barsom and Rolfe have given test results for HY-130 and type 403 steels (both are martensitic steels with proper heat treatment), It is assumed that if a crack is initiated during the accident period it will take place in 20s, ie, 2000 cycles of vibration during large amplitudes of whirl taking place in the coast down time. The stress intensity factor for 2mm (0.078 in) radius, to initiate the crack in 2000 cycles is 112 ksig/in. This translates to 2 = LI? x 0.7 x Ao 02818 (6) Hence the required stress range is = 152 ksi = 1048 MPa o This means 524 MPa stress amplitude is necessary to initiate a crack at the perfect notch with a radius of 2 mm in 2000 cycles of loading. For this condition to arise, it is necessary that the blade is intact until severe rubbing has begun to take place. Such a rubbing can be assumed (o take place in the event of bearing failure first. Assuming bearings 4 and 5 in the common housing failed first, because their distress condition shown in Fig, 4, it was shown in [14] that stage 5 in flow path 2 of LP rotor is the most likely point to hit the casing and form a support, Under these conditions, the rub load was estimated to be 24KN and the corresponding average stress at the blade root as 296 MPa. Therefore, finite life crack initiation could not have taken place at the trailing edge comer even under severe rubbing. Since blade #52 has a clear zone I crack propagating at a slow rate, fresh eracks could be initiated at a distance where the crack has already grown, in this case 40 mm. The blades which did not have a crack until this stage could not have a finite crack initiation even under severe rubbing which explains the failure of the blades in the airfoil region as a consequential damage to that from blade #52. 6. FATIGUE CRACK PROPAGATION THRESHOLD ‘A crack once initiated can propagate at a certain rate. For propagation to take place, a minimum value, shreshold, of stress range is required. If the blade is subjected to stresses lower than this value then, even if'a crack is initiated, it cannot propagate. Referring to Barsom and Rolfe, the threshold stress intensity factor for crack propagation is given by AKy = 6.4(1 — 0.852) ksi/in (8) Taking R = 68/386 = 0.17, AKy = 5.Sksiv/in = 6 MPaym 9) Hence, 5.5 =0.784A0,/0.2810 (19) i.e, the required stress range for crack propagation is given by Ao = 7.46 ksi = 51 MPa ap Or, the crack can propagate only when the amplitude of stress is more than 25.75 MPa, Below this value of stress, even after crack initiation, the crack cannot propagate. It is assumed that the blade is experiencing a pulsating force of 1% steady load under transient excitations and that the damping is 0.5% (ie, quality factor = 100), the stress amplitude is determined to be 36.5 MPa, which is more than the threshold value above. Therefore wheneverApplication of fracture mechanics in failure analysis 60s Table 1. Crack growth calculation in zone T en AN-cycles —EAN-cycles —da/dN-am 0335 28.913 28,513 ‘008s 0375 man 52,786 0082 0.425 21,085 7337 0.06 047s 18,605 92,476 0.068 0.525 16.624 103,100 0.076 ots 15.007 124,107 0.085 0.625 13,663 137,770 0.093 0675 121330 150,300 a0} os 1s6z Il.g62 ou 0775 10726 172,388 oats 0.825, 9998: 182,586 0137 0375, 9357 191983 0.136 0928 87390 200,733 0148 0975 was 2o0.018 0183 1.025 2 216,850 oe L975 7423 24273 0171 Lis 7058 21326 os 1178 one 238,082 0.189 ns 6409 2abasi 0.198 135 6127 250,578 0.207 1335, 5867 2564S 0.216 1398 5028 262,073 0.226 1425 5406 267.879 0.235 1425 5200 D269 0248 1.825 5009 277.688 0.258 ust 4830 282518 0.263 transient excitation conditions (changes in frequency and load) exist, blade resonance takes place and the resulting stress amplitude is sufficient to propagate a crack that has been initiated. 7. CRACK PROPAGATION CALCULATIONS IN ZONE 1 As mentioned in Sections 4 and 6, the crack once initiated on the weak blade, in this case blade #52, can grow under the stress conditions that exist during the transient conditions of machine operation. The fatigue-crack-propagation-rate data, Paris law, for martensitic steels from Barsom and Rolfe, is d ” Gy = 086 x 1O-(AKiAinjeycle 02 For an edge crack in tension, we have from Barsom and Rolfe, AK = 112,/nd0/amy = 198A! dy (13) For Aa = 0.05 in, fatigue-crack-propagation-rate equation is, 0.08 0.66 x 10-*(1 980/05.) Crack propagation in zone I is calculated for the stress range 10,59 ksi (73 MPa) which will take place whenever there are transient conditions of operations, The results are given in Table | from 4% = 0.3 in The calculated striation spacing in Table | ranges from 0.05 to 0.25 pm. The striation spacing in this zone I from fractographic analysis is found to be 0.1-0.3 um which is in agreement with the above values. Therefore, it can be concluded that the blade #52 is a weak blade with a material defect and/or a manufacturing blemish with its crack initiated quite some time ago propagated over a period of 43 min of operation, whenever the stress amplitude is more than the threshold value, say, 36.5MPa. Under the prevailing grid conditions, it is estimated that such an operational ane (gy606 4.8. Reo situation is possible over the period of the life of the machine from its inception in 1988. The crack growth given in Table 1 is plotted in Fig. 5. &, INITIATION OF FRESH CRACKS. Figure 3 shows that blade #52 suffered multiple fractures from the previous crack that existed at 40 mm length. For the crack to initiate in 2000 cycles at a notch length of 1.57 in (corresponding to the first multiple crack mark), the stress intensity factor for a notch at the end of crack tip with 0.01 in radius, from Barsom and Rolfe, is AK, = 400/001 = 40 ksi, fin as) “The corresponding stress range from equation (3) is given by, 40.0 = 0.7840, /1.8512 (16) ie. Ao = 21.2 ksi = 146 MPa ay Hence, a stress amplitude of 73 MPa is sufficient to start a fresh crack, The value of stress estimated under rub loads is 296 MPa, which is far in excess of 73 MPa required to produce a single fresh crack. Hence, multiple cracks can initiate on blade #52 as actually observed. Therefore, it may be stated again that the rubbing loads can cause fresh multiple cracks at the end of the previously existing crack on blade #52, however, on the rest of the blades, without any defect or blemish, the stress is not sufficient to start fresh cracks at the trailing edge. This explains why blades other than #52 did not fail in fatigue fracture. 9. CRACK PROPAGATION CALCULATIONS IN ZONE IL “The response duc to rub can be taken as double the stress values from static stress calculations. However, during the rub the blade may be free roughly half the time during these excursions. Therefore, on average a continuous dynamic response for stress range 296 MPa (43 ksi) is taken for the crack propagation calculation from 40 to 70mm. Crack propagation in zone II for this load is given in Table 2. The striation spacing obtained in Table 2 is close to the actual values 8-12 xm found in zone IL The time taken for the crack to propagate from 49 to 70 mm under these conditions works out to 38 s with a blade frequency 110 Hz. The uncracked blade natural frequency 110 Hz will however decrease with crack propagation, i.e. the time period for the crack to propagate from 40 to 70 mm dla/dN Microns 0 1 2 3 Average Crack Length-inches Fig. 5. Crack growth in zones 1 and IlApplication of fracture mechavics in failure analysis 7 “Table 2. Crack growth calculation in zone IL a ‘BNecycles ——EAN-eyckes ——da/dV-ym 1995 303 203 6236 645 rt 0 6a 1695 190 $50 S684 114s 184 7m 6302 1785 v8 952 7135 1.84 13 112 341 1.895 168 1253 736 1945 183 1486 11 1995 138 Iei4 8.038 2085 13s 1768 8247 2095 150 1318 8.467 2485 14s 2064 8.699 2195 aa 2206 944 245 Bo 25 oust 2295 Bs 2480 9.407 244s 12 2612, 9.621 2395 bs mal 9845 2445 126 2867 10.079 2495 Be 2390 10.325 2.545 120 a0 10.388 2595 18 soa 10.763 2.685 us 38 193 2655 "3 uss 11239 2745 Ho 3566, W543 298 108 wu 11959 2aas 106 3780 14981 2.895 108 3884 2212 2045 1m 836 14st 2995 10 $086 127 will be more than 38 s, However, itis to be noted that there is a critical speed for the rotor 1095 rpm without bearings #4 and #5 [14]. Therefore, the rubbing at this speed can be expected to be more severe than at other speeds during the excursions in the period of the accident when the rotor was decelerating from 3000 to O rpm. Thus the observed failure of blade #52 can be attributed to the excessive loads experienced from the rubbing at 3000 rpm and in the subsequent periods in a time period less than 30's as observed in the coast-down speed chart in Fig. 2. 10. STRESS CALCULATION FOR PRODUCING UNSTABLE CRACK The conditions required to produce the final fracture observed on blade #52 are given here. The stress analysis at the blade root has shown that the plastic zone comprised of a fraction of element where the root is fixed. The plastic zone near the crack tip can be assumed to be sufficiently small so that LEFM is valid in the present case. The final crack length to produce unstable conditions can be correlated with maximum stress and the fracture toughness for martensitic steels from the following relation, see {11] a= i [Ss] a8) The fracture toughness of material for the composition given before is K. = 210 MPay/m and the factor Fis estimated as 1.3/1.125 = 1.16. Taking a = 70 mm, the maximum stress required for the observed fracture is 1p 210.0 0.070 = + [ae] as) ie. Saas = 386 MPa 20)oR 45. Rao. The average value of mean stress due to centrifugal forces and steam bending load at the cross-section of the fracture is 318 MPa. The amplitude of the alternating component of stress needed therefore is 386-318 = 68 MPa, i.e. the alternating stress range is 136 MPa. The blade in practice however was subjected to loads of different magnitudes in its tife time, transient resonance during rotor excursions and load fluctuations over a long period of time causing crack propagation in zone I and multiple loads over a short period of time in zone II. The above calculation can therefore be taken to represent an average situation. 11. STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR AT THE FINAL FRACTURE. The stress intensity factor at the final erack length observed can also be used to substantiate the blade fracture. The bending stress of the blade due to rubbing, when the blade has lost almost 50% area, is twice 296 MPa, i.e. 592 MPa. In addition, centrifugal stress at 1100 rpm with around 50% area is determined as $5 MPa. The total stress is thus 677 MPa (98 ksi). The stress intensity factor under these conditions is estimated as, see Barsom and Rolfe, [11} Ka 112 x 0.7 «98.0 x /2n = 193 ksiin. = 230MPa/m Qu This value being more than the fracture toughness of the material, the failure of blade #52 takes place as observed. 12, CONCLUSIONS The blade failure case in a nuclear plant steam turbine is described. The fracture surface is divided into three zones. Zone I contained a slowly propagating crack, zone If contained multipte cracks and a propagating crack at a fast rate, zone III is the unstable crack zone. Though more advances have taken place revently on calculation procedures for crack initiation and propagation, they stilt remain to be applicable to somewhat simple geometries. Stress intensity factor approach using experimental data is found to be suitable to study the crack initiation, propagation in the two zones Land I and overload fracture in zone II] and the results thus determined are found to agree with the observations of the actual fracture of the blade at the root. From this work it can be concluded that the procedures of determining the natural frequencies, mode shapes, excitation forces, modal damping, fracture initiation, propagation and faiture can be used with a fair amount of confidence in the design and diagnosis of turbine blades. Acknowledgements—The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to BHEL for providing him a chair at ITT Delhi. He is algo grateful wo the Indian Aeronautical Research and Development Board to have provided him substantial finding on a long term basis. Finally, the author is very grateful to the National Science Couneil in Taiwan to have provided a Research chair and to Professor Bernard Shiau for the invitation to work in his group at the National Chung Cheng University, The author is also grateful to the Indian lastitute of Technology, Delhi for giving him the sabbatical leave tO work in Taiwan REFERENCES Fleeting, R. and Coats, R., Trans. Inst. Marine Engr.. 1970, 82, 49, Frank, W., Schaden Speigel, 1982. 26, (1), 20. Rao. J. S$. Turbomachine Blade Vibration. Wiley, New York, 1991 Rao, 1. S., Turbomackine Unsteady Aerodenamies. Wiley Eastern, New Delhi Wishwa Prakashan, London, 1994, Rao, J. S., Gupta, K. and Vyas, N. S.. Shock and Vib. Bull. 1986, 56, Part 2, 103. Rao. J. §, and Vyas, N.S. J. Engng. Gas Turbines and Power, Trans ASME, 1996, 118, 117. . Shighey, 5. E. and Mischke, R., Standard Handbook of Machine Design. McGraw Hill, New York, 1986, Bagei, C., Mech. Mach. Theory, 1981, Vb, 339, ‘Wyas.'N.'S. and Rao, J. S., J. Engng. Gas Turbines and Power, Trans. ASME, 1998, 116, 198 Paris, PC. and Erdogan, F., J Basie Engng. Trans ASME, 1963, 88, 528, BorneuseneApplication of Fracture mechani in failure analysis 609 HL. Barsom, J, M. and Rolfe, $. T., Fracture and Fatigue Control in Structures. Prentice Hall. Englewood Clits, 1987, 12, Suresh, S., Fatigue of Materials. Cambridge University Press, 1992, 13. Vyas, N.S, and Rao, J. $., ASME 93-GT-406, 1993, 1S, Rao, J. 8. Singh, AK. and Bhaskara Sarma, K, V.. Proc. Noth World Congress on the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, 1995, 2, 1334.