Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641

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Failure analysis of the final stage blade in steam turbine

Wei-Ze Wang *, Fu-Zhen Xuan, Kui-Long Zhu, Shan-Tung Tu
School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 402, Shanghai 200237, PR China

Received 22 February 2006; accepted 1 March 2006

Available online 11 May 2006

Abstract

A failure case of the low pressure blades of steam turbine is presented in this paper. The suction side of blades has been
quenched to improve the erosion resistance. Cracks with different lengths were found in the quenched region of final stage
blades after about 13,200 h service. The failure analysis of blades was performed in terms of composition analysis, micro-
structure and mechanical tests, etc. The yield strength and tensile strength conform to the corresponding standard, whereas
the elongation, area reduction and impact toughness are lower than the criteria. From the crack morphology, fractography
and composition analysis on the fracture surface, it was found that the failure mechanism of blades is the environment-
assisted fatigue fracture. The location of fatigue crack initiation is related with the salient of blades due to the stress con-
centration. In order to decrease the blade cracking susceptibility, the increment of tempered temperature in both modified
treatment and high-frequency hardening was recommended.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Turbine blade; Failure analysis; Fractography; Fatigue; Mechanical Properties

1. Introduction

Blades of steam turbine are critical components in power plants which convert the linear motion of high
temperature and high pressure steam flowing down a pressure gradient into a rotary motion of the turbine
shaft [1]. If blades of turbine fail, power plants will shut down. This case can cause long time current failure
and economic loss. Therefore, it is necessary to settle the failure analysis of turbine blades in order to increase
the reliability of turbine systems. The low pressure turbine blades, designed to extract the final remnants of
energy from the passing steam flow, are relatively large scale rotating airfoils due to the significant centrifugal
forces experienced during normal operation [2]. Previous researches have shown that low pressure blades of a
steam turbine are generally found to be more susceptible to failure than intermediate pressure and high pres-
sure blades [3]. The most common failure mechanisms which occur within a mature low pressure blade are
normally those associated with either sympathetic or forced vibrations, those caused by transient operating

*
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 21 64253513.
E-mail address: wangwz@ecust.edu.cn (W.-Z. Wang).

1350-6307/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2006.03.004
 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641 633

Fig. 1. Final stage low pressure blades with the suction side quenched.

conditions, and those which occur as the result of the transported and accumulated corrosive ions in the work-
ing fluid [4–6].
The present paper reports the failure investigation of blades in the low pressure stage of a steam turbine.
Blades have self-locking laces on the tip, and bosses in the middle, shown as Fig. 1. Modified 12% chromium
martensitic steel, the most popular blade material [1,7,8], was employed after modified treatment. To improve
the erosion resistance, the suction side of low pressure blade was heat treated through high-frequency quench-
ing method, corresponding temper and shape-righting followed. The temperature of quenching and temper
were 1020 °C and 400 °C, respectively.
On the routine inspection after about 13,200 h service, cracks were observed on the inner arc face of blade
suction side of a portion of final stage blades, which all located in some distance from the tip. In order to iden-
tify the root cause of the failure and to ascertain whether it was due to a materials related problem or due to
changes in operational parameters arising from the grid frequency, etc. the detailed analysis results, such as
metallurgical examination and fractography were presented.

2. Experimental procedure

The failure of turbine final stage blades can be related to many events, such as water erosion, stress corro-
sion, corrosion fatigue, and fatigue. In this paper, a fault tree was constructed to analyze the possible causes
for final stage blade cracking, shown as Fig. 2, and the final stage blade failure was defined as the top event of
fault tree. The main causes of blade failure connected each other by OR gate were considered as sub-top
events. Through visual examination it was found that cracking does not initiate from erosion pits or corrosion
pits on the blade suction side. Therefore, both water erosion and electrochemical corrosion are terminating
events in the fault tree. From the cracking morphology, stress corrosion is not the failure cause for the final
stage blade in this study, which is also defined as a terminating event. Further developing the blade failure
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Fig. 2. Fault tree analysis of the final stage blade in steam turbine.

causes of corrosion fatigue and fatigue, the fault tree is comprised of 12 basic events. Through using Fussel
method and Boolean algebraic operations, 11 minimum cut sets of the fault tree of final stage blades failure
were obtained, including X1, X2, X3, X4X5X7, X4X5X8, X4X6X7, X4X6X8, X9X11, X9X12, X10X11, and
X10X12. Any of the minimum cut sets of the fault tree could cause the top event, i.e. the failure of final stage
blades. Therefore, in order to keep the working order of final stage blades, in another word, to find the failure
cause of the blade, the minimum cut sets and the basic events in the fault tree should be paid more attention.
The following experimental procedures were thus carried out to identify the root cause of the blade cracking.
The failure analysis was performed to the quenched region and the root region separately, for the suction
side of final stage blades was heat treated through high frequency hardening before put into operation. The
metallography samples of the quenched region were cut near cracks on the suction side of blades, and the sam-
ples of the blade materials from the root region. In addition, for examining the crack morphology, a sample
with cracks was taken. The metallography samples were prepared by using standard metallographic tech-
niques and etched with a dilute solution of FeCl3 and HCl.
Composition of the blade material in the root region was analyzed by the spectroscopic methodology. The
failed blade was cut for fractography study along cracks on the suction side of blade. The blade microstructure
was analyzed by optical microscope and a JSM-6360LV scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with
an energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis facility. Hardness in the quenched region and the root region was
 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641 635

obtained using a Vickers Hardness Testing machine (TU300 FM, WILSON INSTRUMENTS) under
conditions of 10 kg load and 15 s. The tensile mechanical properties were measured through using CSS-
44020 tensile testing machine. JB308 impact testing machine was employed to measure the impact toughness.
For the thickness of blades in the quenched region was not large enough to prepare samples for impact tough-
ness measurement, this parameter was only obtained for the root region of blade materials.

3. Experimental results

3.1. Visual examination

The rearward face of the suction side of blades reveals a coarse surface. More erosion pits exist on it, which
distribute from the blade tip to the root region, with a length of about 300 mm. Erosion pits are relatively deep
examined from the surface, shown as Fig. 3(b). The position, where erosion pits distribute is corresponding to
the quenched region of blade suction side, which means that though quenching to the blade suction side can
decrease the influence of erosion, cannot avoid the effect completely. A specimen was cut perpendicular to the
blade surface from the suction side, whose cross section was shown in Fig. 4. It was found that the outline of
rearward face is rounder than that of the inner arc face, on the edge of which a salient of the outline could be
found.
Through dye penetrant testing of blades (shown as Fig. 5), it was found that cracks with a length of 2–8 mm
propagate transversely on the inner arc face with a distance 95–205 mm from the blade tip, most in a distance
of 130–170 mm. The cracks initialize from the edge of the suction side, which do not connect with erosion pits
examined from the surface as generally expected. It shows that erosion pits are not the crack initiation point.

3.2. Composition analysis

The blade material was found to have the following material composition: C–0.22; Si–0.28; Mn–0.52; Ni–
0.46; Cr–12.20; Mo–0.95; V–0.32; P–0.027; S–0.015; Cu–0.15; balance-Fe. The composition of blades clearly
falls within standard specification [9].

Fig. 3. Distribution and pattern of erosion pits on the suction side of final stage low pressure blades in steam turbine.
636 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641

Fig. 4. View of cross sectional surface of blade.

Fig. 5. Distribution of cracks on the suction side of the final stage low pressure blade.

3.3. Metallographic examination

Polished metallographic illustrates tempered martensitic microstructure for the quenched region of blades,
shown as Fig. 6. There are the normally expected microstructures in the quenched region and is no evidence of
microstructural degradation in the failed blade. This is expected because the temperature that the blade was
exposed to was relatively low (of the order of 150 °C). A tempered sorbite microstructure can be observed for
the root region (Fig. 7), with some tempered sorbite maintaining its original martensitic microstructure prob-
ably in the quenching treatment for the temper temperature was not high enough in the modified treatment.
 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641 637

Fig. 6. Tempered martensitic microstructure in the blade quenched region.

Fig. 7. Tempered sorbite microstructure in the blade root region.

The typical morphology of cracks found in the final stage blade is shown in Fig. 8. The crack is very straight
with little evidence of crack branching. It can be judged primarily that the crack has no feature of the stress
corrosion. The propagation of cracks represents an intermittent pattern. Probably, it was caused by the steps
formed during cracks propagation or another crack source initialized by the variety of stress condition at the
crack front.

3.4. Fractography

A low magnification image of the fracture surface of the failed blade is shown in Fig. 9. Several indistinct
beach marks and radial striae can be observed on the fracture surface. The curvature of the beach marks indi-
cates that the site of the crack initiation is towards the salient of blade configuration, shown as Fig. 4, not the
erosion pits on the rearward face of blades.
The fractography examined by both naked-eyes and SEM showed that there are no clear corrosion pits at
the crack initiation point. Fig. 10 shows the fractography in the crack extending region of blades, which has a
feature of inter granular fracture combining with quasi-cleavage fracture. In addition, secondary cracks were
also identified in the region. After the corrosion products were removed by ultrasonic cleaning and acetate
process, the composition on the fracture surface was analyzed through the EDX attached on to SEM.
638 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641

Fig. 8. Crack micrograph on the polished surface parallel to the crack propagation direction.

Fig. 11 shows the typical composition analysis result on the fracture surface by the EDX analysis. Other than
the basic component of the blade material, oxygen was found, which may be the result of long-term exposure
in the atmosphere or due to the reaction of blades with steam.

3.5. Mechanical properties

The measured hardness values in the quenched region are shown in Fig. 12. Hardness decreased continu-
ously with the distance from the edge of blade suction side increasing to 10 mm. The width of quenched region
was identified as about 10 mm from the distribution of hardness value and the etched microstructure. Com-
pared with the hardness in the quenched region and the root region, the hardness value in the transition zone
between the quenched region and the base material decreased undetectably, which is HV303. This parameter
 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641 639

Fig. 9. Micrograph of the fractured blade (a) and schematic of beach marks and radial striations by dashed lines (b).

Fig. 10. Fracture surface showing an intergranular type of fracture combining with a quasi-cleavage type fracture.

Fig. 11. Typical EDX analysis results for the surface of fractured blades.
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Fig. 12. Distribution of hardness along the cracks propagation direction.

Table 1
Mechanical properties of root region and quenched region of the final stage blades
r0.2 (MPa) rb (MPa) d5 (%) W (%) Ak (J)
Recommended values [9] P600 – P15 P50 P47
In the root region 938.7 1004.7 17.5 41.3 24
In the root region 887.1 1011.8 16.5 45.5 25
In the root region 879.2 993.2 14.5 57.7 26
In the quenched region 1342.3 1532.5 10.0 22.5 –
In the quenched region 1435.0 1637.4 9.3 20.5 –

drives to a stable value, which is equivalent to the data in root region with a value of HV307, when the dis-
tance is over 10 mm from the edge of blade suction side. The hardness of the blade quenched region meets the
selective hardness criterion for blade quenching materials according to the JB/Z 362.3-89 standard [10].
The measured mechanical properties of the root region and the quenched region are shown in Table 1. The
yield strength and the tensile strength in the root region and the quenched region conform to the GB 8732-88
standard. However, the area reduction, impact toughness and one elongation in the root region are lower than
the criteria in the standard, which is corresponding to the insufficient tempered microstructure. In addition,
due to the effect of high-frequency hardening, the mechanical properties in the blade quenched region show
a similar tendency as those in the root region.

4. Discussion

The chemical composition of failed blades and metallographic microstructure found in the quenched region
measure up. No overheated or burnt structure was observed in the blade suction side, i.e. steam temperature
has no abnormal influence on the final stage blade. However, some tempered sorbite in the root region shows
an insufficient tempered microstructure, which result in the lower elongation, area reduction and impact
toughness. Though cracks on the blade suction side have not propagated into the region which was not treated
by high-frequency hardening, it is necessary to increase the temper temperature in the modified treatment for
decreasing the cracking susceptibility of blades.
Through the visual examination and low magnification observation of the fracture surface of the failed
blade, it was found that the crack initiation position is related to the salient of blade configuration on the inner
arc face. The suction side of blades was treated by the high-frequency hardening to improve its water erosion
resistance, which resulted in the higher strength and hardness. However, the elongation and the area reduction
in this region are lower than the recommended value, respectively. To a material with the higher strength and
hardness as well as lower impact toughness, its brittleness is higher. Correspondingly, its sensibility of stress
concentration will be higher, and the vibration resistance deteriorates. In this instance may be without a higher
 W.-Z. Wang et al. / Engineering Failure Analysis 14 (2007) 632–641 641

stress condition cracks will initiate at the stress concentration position. Secondary cracks found in the fracture
surface further indicate the lower fracture resistance of this region. If decreasing the projecting angle of the
configuration or increasing the toughness of blade suction side under the condition of meeting the requirement
for erosion by heat-treatment, the blade cracking resistance will be increased. Temper sufficiently after the
high-frequency hardening to the suction side can decrease the notch sensibility of blade, which may be effective
to prevent blade from cracking.
Beach marks found on the fracture surface prove that the failure mechanism of blades is fatigue. Gaps
between endless laces or between bosses resulted from improper assembly of blades or other condition, lead
to the occurrence of vibration, other kind of stress superimposed promoting the cracking, during blades oper-
ating. Therefore, further stress analysis is necessary to study the cause for vibration, so much as for cracking.
Through the examination of corrosion products on the fracture surface it could not be confirmed that the cor-
rosion fatigue control the blade cracking for exposure in the atmosphere could also result in oxygen corrosion.
Furthermore, corrosion pits were not found at the crack initiation point. Therefore, only the conclusion can be
drawn that fatigue with the influence of corrosion controls the failure of blades.

5. Conclusions and recommendations

 From the crack micrograph, composition on the fracture surface and fractography analysis, it was found
that fatigue, accelerated slightly by corrosion controls the blade fracture.
 The crack position of failed blades has regularity with some distance from the blade tip. The crack initiation
point is corresponding to the salient of blade suction side configuration. Therefore, the occurrence of cracks
has a relation with the stress concentration at this point. Enhancement in the suction side curvature radius
of the blade configuration is recommended to decrease the stress concentration and retard the initiation and
propagation of cracks.
 The elongation, area reduction and impact toughness in the quenched region are lower than the recommen-
dation though hardness is reasonable. The lower mechanical condition promotes the crack initiation and
propagation. On the basis of enhancing blade hardness to assure the ability to resist erosion, temper suf-
ficiently to the quenched region is needed to decrease the notch sensibility of blade materials.
 The metallurgical microstructure in blade root region shows an insufficient tempered one, corresponding to
the lower elongation, area reduction and impact toughness, whereas the yield strength and tensile strength
conform to the recommended standard. For decreasing blade cracking susceptibility, the temper tempera-
ture in the modified treatment should be increased.

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the Key Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (Contract No. 70420).

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