A Novel Method for High Temperature Fatigue Testing of Nickel Superalloy Turbine Blades with Additional NDT Diagnostics

In this paper, a novel method for high temperature fatigue strength assessment of nickel superalloy turbine blades after operation at different times (303 and 473 h) was presented. The studies included destructive testing (fatigue testing at temperature 950 °C under cyclic bending load), non-destructive testing (Fluorescent Penetrant Inspection and Eddy Current method), and finite element modelling. High temperature fatigue tests were performed within load range from 5200 to 6600 N using a special self-designed blade grip attached to the conventional testing machine. The experimental results were compared with the finite element model generated from the ANSYS software. It was found that failure of turbine blades occurred in the area with the highest stress concertation, which was accurately predicted by the finite element (FE) model.