Thermomechanical fatigue life prediction method for nickel-based superalloy in aeroengine turbine discs under multiaxial loading

The multiaxial thermomechanical fatigue properties for nickel-based superalloy GH4169 in aeroengine turbine discs are investigated in this paper. Four types of axial–torsional thermomechanical fatigue experiments were performed to identify the cyclic deformation behavior and the damage mechanism. The experimental results showed that the creep damage can be generated under thermally in-phase loading while it can be ignored under thermally out-of-phase loading, and the responded stress increasing phenomenon, that is, non-proportional hardening, can be shown under the mechanically out-of-phase strain loading. Based on the analysis of cyclic deformation behavior and damage mechanism, a life prediction method was proposed for multiaxial thermomechanical fatigue, in which the pure fatigue damage, the creep damage, and the interaction between them were simultaneously considered. The pure fatigue damage can be calculated by the isothermal fatigue parameters corresponding to the temperature without creep; the creep damage can be calculated by the principle of subdivision, and the creep–fatigue interaction can be determined by creep damage, fatigue damage, and an interaction coefficient which is used to reflect the creep–fatigue interaction strength. The predicted results showed that the proposed method is reasonable.