Failure analysis in mechanical components of commercial

airplane engines

José Fernando Roque Gonçalves de Almeida

Dept. Engenharia Mecânica, Instituto Superior Técnico,

Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
E-mail: omny@sapo.pt

Abstract

The need to prevent failures in mechanical components has always been huge not only
for safety reasons but also for economical reasons. In this work two commercial airplane engine
failures are studied, the fracture mechanism of the components are analyzed in order to
determine possible root causes.
There is also a report on the most common failures in airplane engines and their
causes.
In order to carry out this investigation, non destructive tests were performed, visual
analyzes, optical microscope analyzes and scanning electron microscope analyzes were carried
out.
Every necessary step to perform a similar investigation is indicated in this document.
After all analysis it was possible to identify and determine the possible causes that lead
to both engines failure.

Keywords: Airplane Engine, fatigue, corrosion, Non Destructive Tests

1. Introduction investigations require a very good

knowledge of fracture mechanics and an
open, inquisitive mind.
Nowadays there are thousands of
Every single fracture has a distinct
commercial flights every day, in order to
signature and by analyzing this signature,
ensure the safety of all those passengers,
one can gather information about the
maintenance engineers and technicians
loading the component withstood.
work incessantly so that all the mechanical
A failure investigation should
and electronic components are in good
always be valued, not only because it may
shape.
increase the safety of the machine where
In order to understand why a
the components were, the investigation
component failed and what can be done to
results can lead to better mechanical
prevent further failures, a failure
project which may increase the component
investigation should be made, these

1
reliability and consequently reduce the vertical, then it began to descend quickly
maintenance costs. and crashed into the ground killing all the
passengers and crew members. An
The first failure investigation in investigation was made by the North
aviation started in its early years, when the American entity National Transportation
first military plane projected by the Wright Safety Board, and realized that the rotation
brothers crashed, killing one airplane was caused by a slat movement caused by
passenger and dangerously injuring Orville the engine separation which was caused by
Wright. As soon as Wilbur Wright received fatigue, [3].
the news he ordered the airplane parts
were brought back to him in order to 2.2. Failure modes and
investigate what happened, [1].
their caractherization
This study is a failure investigation
on two airplane engines, a Rolls-Royce
2.2.1. Fatigue
engine RB211-524B and a CFM56-5C
engine. Both were in Transportes Aéreos
One of the most common failure
Portugueses Maintenance and Engineering
mode is without doubt Fatigue.
workshop.
Fatigue is the progressive, localized, and
permanent structural change that occurs in
2. Bibliographic revision a material subjected to repeated or
fluctuating strains at nominal stresses that
2.1. Historical analysis of have maximum values less than (and often
airplanes failures much less than) the static yield strength of
the material. Fatigue may culminate into

One of the most known and tragic one or more cracks and cause fracture after

incidents in aviation were the accidents that a sufficient number of fluctuations. Fatigue

destroyed two Havilland DH 106 comet damage is caused by the simultaneous

airplanes, those airplanes were very action of cyclic stress, and plastic strain, [4].

advance in their time and were easily Fatigue failures leave easy to

defeating all competition, however they identify signatures, like absence of plastic

were affected by severe fatigue on their deformation, ratchet marks, beachmarks

windows which lead to critical failure of the and fatigue

fuselage, [2].
A very well know case is also the 2.2.1.1. Low cycle fatigue
failure of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 in
1979. Soon after the airplane takeoff his left It is considered that a fracture is
engine, a CF6-6D from General Electric, due to low cycle fatigue when the number
got separated from the wing, not too long of cycles needed to achieve fracture is less
4 5
after the airplane began to rotate to his left than 10 or 10 , low cycle fatigue can be
side until it’s wings were completely observed mostly on pressured tanks and

2
vapor turbines, components that are subject 2.2.1.2 High cycle fatigue
to repeated stresses from thermal loadings.
The most used equation in low cycle fatigue High cycle fatigue is the continuous
is the Coffin-Manson (1), [15]. damage to a component cause by a low
stress with a very high frequency.
 p
  'f 2 N f 
c Although it is not considered to be
(1)
2 as dangerous as low cycle fatigue, because

Where  p is the plastic extension range,
N r is the number of cycles until the
material fractures, c is the graphic slope
that relates the plastic extension and the
number of cycles until the material rupture,
in some cases the material can withstand
infinite equal loads, if the material suffered
any previous damage its resistance to high
cycle fatigue can be compromised, and the
part will fail, [4].

finally  'f is the fatigue ductility factor. 2.2.2. Creep

However it is easier to work with

the total extension  t , using equation (2):

Creep is the slow deformation of
the material, which occurs after a long
period of time where the component is
 t   e   p (2)
subject to stresses lower than their tensile
Where  e is the elastic extension strength, this phenomenon is very
influenced by temperature, see figure 1.
range of the material. A good approximation
to the graphics slope is the equation (3):

 p  'f
 2 N b f (3)
2 E
Where b is the fatigue resistance

exponent,  'f is the fatigue resistance

factor and E is the young’s modulus.

Using the equations (1), (2) and (3), Figure 1 – Schematic representation of the
it is easy to reach equation (4) that is widely creep curves with constant temperature, [5]
used:

In 1910, Andrade realized the first

 p  '

2 N    'f 2 N f 
experiences with creep and he proposed

f b c
f (4)
2 E the following equation, [6]:

  t 3  t (5)

3
 Where t is the time, α and β 3. Experimental Procedure
material constants and ε is the extension.
Graham and Whales extrapolated
3.1. Failure Analysis
Andrade analysis and proposed another
equation (6), where γ is another material
There are five important steps
constant, Ref [6]:
during a failure analysis, see figure 2, [1]:
 Identify – Describe the situation,
1

  t  t  t 3
3
(6)
gather as much information as
possible.
 Determine root cause – analyze
2.2.3. Corrosion
the problem and the information
gathered and discover the root
Corrosion is the loss of material
cause.
because of its reactions with the
 Develop corrective actions –
environment. It has been estimated that
Create a list of possible solutions,
USA spends every year around 276 billion
think of alternatives.
dollars with corrosion control methods,
 Validate and verify corrective
reparations and damages caused by it, [7].
actions – Test if the corrective
In aviation corrosion is a serious
actions are effective or not.
issue, airplanes deal with many corrosion
 Standardize – Create a standard
agents like oil, water and some components
with the corrective actions, change
that are produced during fuel combustion.
the manuals.

2.2.4. Wear

The wear is defined as the loss of

material from a solid surface because of
reasons like, impacts, friction between
surfaces, cavitation and water drops
impacts.
An airplane gets lots of impact
Figure 2 – Problem solving Model, [1]
damage, being the worst case an animal
attack, most commonly bird attacks. The
3.2. Non Destructive Tests
engine parts suffer a lot of wear on their
blades and bearings.
In aviation there is a great need to
evaluate the component condition without
damaging them, because of the high price
aviation parts have. Non destructive tests,

4
NDT, are very important in any industry and 3.2.3. Boroscope
are developing at a very fast pace.

The boroscope is an optical

3.2.1. Fluorescent liquid instrument that consists of a flexible or rigid
penetrant test tube, with a camera on one of the
extremities. It is widely used to inspect

One of the most used and airplane engines because it can be used to

important NDT is without doubt, the see places that are impossible to evaluate

fluorescent liquid penetrant test, which is unless the engine is dismantled.

used to detect defects on the surface of It is very similar to the endoscope

solid materials, it is used in many aircraft used for medical practice.

parts and it is an inexpensive test that can

give very good results, [8]. 3.2.4. Scanning Electron
There are a few drawbacks in this Microscope
test the first is that it can’t detect internal
defects and the second is that it relies too Scanning Electron Microscope,
much on the technician skill and SEM is very useful to analyze fracture
experience. surfaces. It only works in electrical
conductor material but has a very good
3.2.2. Industrial Radiography range of zoom 10x to 80000x. The image
resolution is very good and has a
Industrial Radiography is the most tridimensional aspect.
well known NDT that exists in industry. It The SEM can also be equipped
uses the well known process of emitting with a x-ray system that can be used to
radiation “x-rays” against the material, the perform an analytic evaluation of the
x-rays that are not blocked by the material, material, this system is called Energy
print a sheet of special paper, that can be Dispersive x-ray Spectroscope, EDS.
stored for later analysis, or to make a A major drawback is that the parts
history of the component, [8]. need to be cut in very small pieces in order
The best advantage of this process to fit the microscope chamber. The SEM
is that it can detect internal flaws, however used in the IST laboratory can be seen in
it has some major drawbacks, for example figure 3.
it can affect the health of the technician that
is doing the process, it is a very expensive
test and it is very difficult to detect flaws
that are not parallel to the x-rays source.

Figure 3 – SEM used at IST, [9]

5
 3.3. Information gathering 4. Results and Discussion
process for the engines
damaged parts 4.1. Engine RB211-524B

All material used in this The failure on the reactor RB211-

investigation was supplied by TAP M&E, 524B is very peculiar and interesting the
the RB211-524B belonged to another engine suffered an Overhaul not long ago
company and the CFM56-5C was TAP and passed the bench test. The engine had
property. the following flight cycles and flight hours:
The Rolls-Royce engine failed
during the airplane take-off at the airport of 81147 - Total Flight hours
Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, it suffered a 12791 – Total Flight Cycles
surge which destroyed lots of vanes of the 185 – Flight hours after the repair
third compressor stage, the engine was 56 – Flight Cycles after the repair
shut off and the flight was made safely to
Moscow, Russia. It is very important to note that a
All the engine parts were removed flight cycle is considered to be a mission
by specialized TAP M&E technicians, that means a takeoff and landing.
numbered and photographed for record. In figure 4 it is possible to see an
The parts were then analyzed example of the damage the third
visually by me and I created two groups of compressor stage suffered and how the
samples, one to be destroyed in order to vanes are inserted into the reactor.
see them using the optical microscope and
SEM, the other group was tested with
fluorescent penetrant liquid on TAP M&E
installations.
The idea of testing the parts with
the NDT, was to understand the shape and
Figure 4 – Damage present on the third
position of newly created fissures caused
compressor stage vanes
by vane impact and to verify if vanes
without any sign of impact or deformation
All the vanes were inspected
possess or not fissures.
carefully and some conclusions could be
The problem with the CFM56-5C
made:
engine was heavy corrosion on the third
 11,4% of the components had
turbine low pressure stage blades, the
similar fracture surfaces, as figure 4
blades were still intact however for safety
shows.
reasons they were considered
 Some samples have evidence of
unserviceable and were removed by the
suffering rotation in the opposite
technicians.

6
 direction of the normal air flow,
proving that they broke during the
engine surge and got heavily
deformed.
 Some of the samples are rotated in
the direction of the normal air flow,
showing that they were already
broken and were deformed before
the surge occurred.
 Most of the impact evidence are
located in the trailing edge which
indicates that a lot of material
fragments hit the components after
the surge, see figure 5.
fracture surface can be seen in figure 7, the
red area is the fatigue affected zone and
the green area is the final quick fracture
zone.
Figure 7 – Vane 5 fracture surface
Clear beachmarks can be seen on
the left side of the vane, and the point from
where the fatigue started to propagate can
be easily seen using an optical microscope,
an example of this can be seen in figure 8.

Figure 5 – Vane 5 damage

Figure 8 – Vane 5 fatigue origin with a 50x

The samples subject to the NDT
magnifitcation
test revealed that all cracks were formed in
the welding zone of the vane, in the figure 6 Using the SEM it is possible to see
it is easy to spot the cracks because of the
ratchet marks going in the fatigue point of
fluorescent liquid reflection of the UV light.
origin direction, in the figure 9 it is possible
to see a general view of the fracture surface
and the ratchet marks.

Figure 6 – Vane number 102 NDT findings

Five vanes were analyzed using the

optical microscope and SEM. Vane 5 Figure 9 – Photos obtained using SEM.
revealed the most interesting facts, its

7
 The fatigue started in the welding
zone, the starting position is indicated by
the ratchet marks and by the beachmarks
that move away from it. The distance
between striations is very small which
indicates that the vane suffered high
frequency loadings, which are related to the
engine rotating speed in this particular
stage which is around 10611 RPM, and the
number of blades that are present in this
stage around one hundred making a
loading frequency of 17000 Hertz.
An EDS was performed on the
Vane and the Welding material, their results
can be seen on the tables 1 and 2.
According to the engine manual the
vane material is a “Modified 12 per cent
chrome steel” which is compatible to the
results of the EDS in Table 1, the material
is probably a AISI 410 steel.
The Vane welding material has a
very high concentration of gold the idea is
to withstand the high temperatures in this
particularly area.
4.1.1. Estimative of the number
of cycles the vanes
withstood

The vanes are subject to thermal

cycles, in particular whenever the engines
are accelerated to full power during takeoff
and landing using thrust reversers.
Assuming the material is the AISI 410,
material mechanical properties can be seen
Element Atomic%
at table 3, and assuming that the vane
Fe 86,06
temperature in the third stage can reach
Cr 11,96
Ni 1,97 around 400 degree Celsius, a small study
was made to make an estimative of the
Table 1 – Vane base material EDS total number of cycles the vanes have.

Yield Strenght 275 MPa

Tensile Strenght 520 MPa
Young Modulus 200 GPa
Área reduction ratio q 0,3
9,9 x 10-6
Thermal Expansion
/ºC

Table 3 – AISI 410 Mechanical Properties,

[10]
Element Atomic% Element Atomic%
Fe 35,73 Cr 5,76
Si 3,46 Ni 7,00 The temperature variation will
Al 3,49 Au 44,57 cause a small extension on the component
that can be easily calculated:
Table 2 – Vane welding material
EDS result
 t  T  9,9 106  400  20  0,003762  3,762 103

8
 The blades were cut using an
Applying equation (4) the following abrasive wheel and were examined using
equation can be reached: the SEM, in the figure 11 the corrosion
layer is measured.
520 1  1  0 , 5
3,762 10 3  N r0,08  ln  Nr
2 10 5
2  1  0,3 
This equation can be easily solved

using iterations, giving a final resut of 5287

total cycles, a value much inferior to those

registered in the engine.

Figure 11 – SEM image of the corrosion

4.2. Engine CFM56-5C layer and measurement

TAP after having suffered severe According to the SEM

damage on three low pressure turbines of measurement the corrosion layer had
CFM56-5C engines, decided to stop using already 56,9 µm.
blades that had received already many An EDS was made on the blade
treatments on corrosion, this safety base material, the results can be seen on
measure seems to have solved the table 4.
problem, however it is very expensive.
This study was made on a few
selected blades removed from a whole low
pressure turbine third stage, in the figure 10
it is possible to see one of the most
corroded blades.
Element Atomic% Element Atomic%
Ni 58,89 Al 4,40
Cr 14,99 Ti 3,90
Co 15,36 Mo 2,46

Table 4 – Blade base material EDS

Figure 10 – Heavy corroded blade The base material is without doubt

It is easy to spot the heavy
corrosion near the right side of the blade,
which is the most external side of the
component this is probably because the
oxidizing agents are pushed out because of
centrifugal forces, caused by the fast
rotation.
a nickel alloy, normally these alloys have
great mechanical properties and resistance
to high temperatures, making it the ideal
choice for aircraft turbine components.
Although the material corrosion is
very severe, it is not enough to cause a
major failure meaning that those blades

9
could possibly be used for a lot more flight [2] http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/re
cycles. ports/arc/rm/3248.pdf - 5/2/2011
After reading a CFM report about [3] National Transportation Safety
one of the three engine failures, I could Board Aircraft Accident Report
observe images that made me believe that American Airlines, Inc., DC-10-10,
the blades fractured because of tensile N110AA May 25, 1979.
stress corrosion, however CFM
[4] ASM (1992) “Fatigue And
investigation is still not over and it will take th
Fracture” ASM Handbook 19 (9
several more months to reach an end.
edition)
[5] http://silver.neep.wisc.edu/~lakes/V
5. Conclusions Enotes.html
[6] Mecânica dos Materiais, Carlos A.
With all the data acquired during G. De Moura Branco, 4º Edição,
the duration of this investigation, it was 2006, Fundação Calouste
possible to reach some conclusions. Gulbenkian
Regarding the engine RB211-524B, [7] http://www.watermainbreakclock.co
it is possible that some older vanes had m/docs/techbrief.pdf 20/1/2011
already internal damage that cannot be
[8] ASM (1992) “Nondestructive
detected using fluorescent liquid penetrant
Evaluation and Quality Control”
test, those internal defects propagated by th
ASM Handbook 17 (9 edition)
fatigue until the vane fractured, those early
[9] http://www.icems.ist.utl.pt/
fractured vanes created abnormal
27/11/2010
vibrations that caused other vanes to be
[10] http://www.efunda.com/Materials/all
damaged quicker than what was expected,
oys/stainless_steels/show_stainles
leading to a surge that caused major
s.cfm?ID=AISI_Type_410&prop=all
damage making the engine inoperative.
&Page_Title=AISI%20Type%20410
Regarding the CFM56-5C in my
– 10/8/2011
opinion we are looking at a tensile strength
corrosion phenomenon caused by
continuously treatments on the blades that
keep reducing the thickness of the blades
until they have a critical area where they
are susceptible of suffering this kind of
corrosion.

6. References

[1] ASM (1992) “Failure Analysis And

th
Prevention” ASM Handbook 11 (9
edition)

10