The eddy-current and ultrasonic investigations of the nickel-base superalloy the gas turbine engine blades after exploitation

The work carried out microstructural, eddy-current and ultrasonic studies of the material of spent blades of gas turbine engines made of nickel-base superalloy. To determine the degree of damage to the material of the spent blades, studies of the microstructure were carried out on a scanning electron microscope. It was found that γ' coagulation occurred in some specimens, which corresponds to overheated material. Acoustic studies of the material were carried out using the ultrasonic pulse echo method. Comparative analysis showed that in such specimens there is a significant decrease in the velocity of propagation and attenuation of longitudinal ultrasonic waves. It is found that the readings of the eddy-current flaw detector in overheated specimens differ more than twice in comparison with non-overheated specimens. This fact can be used for operational non-destructive testing of the actual state of the metal structure by the eddy current method with the aim of further safe operation of gas turbine engines.

Xe Ion Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Hardening Effect of Nickel-Base Superalloy

The nickel-base superalloy Hastelloy N was irradiated using 1 MeV Xe20+ and 7 MeV Xe26+ ions with displacement damage ranging from 0.5 dPa to 10 dPa at room temperature (RT). The irradiated Ni-based superalloy was characterized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM), XRD, and nanoindenter to determine the changes in microstructural evolution and nanoindentation hardness. The TEM results showed that ion irradiation induced a large number of defects such as black spots and corrugated structures and the second phase was rapidly amorphized after being irradiated to a fluence of 0.5 dPa. The XRD results showed that the Hastelloy N alloy sample did not undergo lattice distortion after ion irradiation. An obvious irradiation hardening phenomenon was observed in this study, and the hardness increased with Xe ion fluence. The pinning effect in which the defects can become obstacles to the free movement of dislocation may be responsible for the irradiation-induced hardening.

Utilizing local phase transformation strengthening for nickel-base superalloys

Almost 75 years of research has been devoted to producing superalloys capable of higher operating temperatures in jet turbine engines, and there is an ongoing need to increase operating temperature further. Here, a new disk Nickel-base superalloy is designed to take advantage of strengthening atomic-scale dynamic complexions. This local phase transformation strengthening provides the alloy with a three times improvement in creep strength over similar disk superalloys and comparable strength to a single crystal blade alloy at 760 °C. Ultra-high-resolution chemical mapping reveals that the improvement in creep strength is a result of atomic-scale η (D024) and χ (D019) formation along superlattice stacking faults. To understand these results, the energy differences between the L12 and competing D024 and D019 stacking fault structures and their dependence on composition are computed by density functional theory. This study can help guide researchers to further optimize local phase transformation strengthening mechanisms for alloy development.