United Technologies Corporation

Robert Jacobi Henricks

John J Marcin

Duane L Ruckle

Raymond Bender Slack

Jacqueline B Wahl

A coated nickel base superalloy single crystal turbine airfoil blade (1), which is subject to gas turbine engine operation, can crack during refurbishment by a stress corrosion mechanism when exposed to certain corrosive media. The rapid thermal cycling that occurs during typical gas turbine engine operation results in high, non-uniform stresses across the airfoil, producing large localized residual strains in the article at ambient temperatures. Exposure to a corrosive environment, such as during coating removal or agressive cleaning, can produce chordwise cracks in a large number of the airfoils exposed. Such cracking is avoided by subjecting the articles to a preliminary stress relieving heat treatment which reduces the residual strains to a level below which cracking will not occur, prior to exposure to the corrosive media.

Stress relief of single crystal superalloy articles

A thermomechanical treatment to improve the fatigue strength of articles made from one of a class of alpha beta titanium alloys. The treatment involves heating the alloy into the beta field, hot deforming the alloy at a temperature within the beta field, rapidly quenching the alloy to room temperature to produce a hexagonal martensite structure and then tempering at an intermediate temperature so as to produce a structure in which discrete equiaxed beta phase particles are presented in an acicular alpha matrix. This structure is particularly resistant to the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks.

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Farmington, CT, United States of America

Robert Jacobi Henricks