Bending Fatigue of Thermal Barrier Coatings

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are ceramic coatings used in gas turbines to lower the base metal temperature. During operation, the TBC may fail through, for example, fatigue. In this study, a TBC system deposited on a Ni-base alloy was tested in tensile bending fatigue. The TBC system was tested as-sprayed and oxidized, and two load levels were used. After interrupting the tests, at 10,000–50,000 cycles, the TBC tested at the lower load had extensive delamination damage, whereas the TBC tested at the higher load was relatively undamaged. At the higher load, the TBC formed vertical cracks which relieved the stresses in the TBC and retarded delamination damage. A finite element (FE) analysis was used to establish a likely vertical crack configuration (spacing and depth), and it could be confirmed that the corresponding stress drop in the TBC should prohibit delamination damage at the higher load.

Symmetrical or Non-Symmetrical Debonds at Fiber–Matrix Interfaces: A Study by BEM and Finite Fracture Mechanics on Elastic Interfaces

A recently proposed criterion is used to study the behavior of debonds produced at a fiber–matrix interface. The criterion is based on the Linear Elastic–(Perfectly) Brittle Interface Model (LEBIM) combined with a Finite Fracture Mechanics (FFM) approach, where the stress and energy criteria are suitably coupled. Special attention is given to the discussion about the symmetry of the debond onset and growth in an isolated single fiber specimen under uniaxial transverse tension. A common composite material system, glass fiber–epoxy matrix, is considered. The present methodology uses a two-dimensional (2D) Boundary Element Method (BEM) code to carry out the analysis of interface failure. The present results show that a non-symmetrical interface crack configuration (debonds at one side only) is produced by a lower critical remote load than the symmetrical case (debonds at both sides). Thus, the non-symmetrical solution is the preferred one, which agrees with the experimental evidences found in the literature.

Multicrack Localization in Rotors Based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Using Fractal Dimension and Gapped Smoothing Method

Multicrack localization in operating rotor systems is still a challenge today. Focusing on this challenge, a new approach based on proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is proposed for multicrack localization in rotors. A two-disc rotor-bearing system with breathing cracks is established by the finite element method and simulated sensors are distributed along the rotor to obtain the steady-state transverse responses required by POD. Based on the discontinuities introduced in the proper orthogonal modes (POMs) at the locations of cracks, the characteristic POM (CPOM), which is sensitive to crack locations and robust to noise, is selected for cracks localization. Instead of using the CPOM directly, due to its difficulty to localize incipient cracks, damage indexes using fractal dimension (FD) and gapped smoothing method (GSM) are adopted, in order to extract the locations more efficiently. The method proposed in this work is validated to be effective for multicrack localization in rotors by numerical experiments on rotors in different crack configuration cases considering the effects of noise. In addition, the feasibility of using fewer sensors is also investigated.

Gradient elasticity applied to a crack

The aim of this paper is to investigate the stress and the displacement field of a crack within a robust version of gradient elasticity, focusing at the standard Mode I, II, III problems. Special treatment is attributed to the crack configuration near its tip, deriving the gradient elasticity results that are analogous to the classical asymptotical solutions near the crack tip.