FRACTURE MECHANICS STUDY OF HIGH TEMPERATURE CRACK GROWTH IN INDUSTRIAL COMPONENT

Abstract

Engineering failures probably starts with cracks. The reason of crack may be material defect abrupt discontinuity in geometry or damages during functionality. Thus the Fracture Mechanics is introduced as a method for predicting failure of a surface containing a crack. However life prediction methods using fracture mechanics methods has since dominated. This project is focusing on crack growth on an IP ROTOR during its life and functionality. Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM), used to evaluate fatigue analysis and fracture analysis in specimen and creep analysis is use for steady state functionality. Linear elastic fracture mechanics considered only small scale yielding near the crack tip (i.e. plastic deformation is lest). If plastic deformation near the crack tip is high it is better to use EPFM. In this study, the important terms in fracture mechanics such as Stress Intensity Factor (SIF), low cycle fatigue, high cycle fatigue creep deformation crack approximation representation of crack advancement fracture mechanism and crack growth mechanism etc are discussed.