CRACK INITIATION AND PROPAGATION OF BLADES FRACTURE MECHANICS APPROACH

Crack initiation and propagation of blades is a serious matter in turbomachinery. Outages are common due to these problems that occur during the service of the machine resulting in a huge loss of revenue. Once in a while, the problems become serious and cause major shutdowns which can in some cases result in the loss of the whole machine in a catastrophic manner. In this presentation, we will discuss the crack initiation studies of a hydraulic machine runner blade by local stress strain approach and crack propagation at the root of a low pressure stage steam turbine blade by means of stress intensity factor approach. In both the cases, we will show how the present day technologies can predict actual field observations.