Browsing by Author "Gibson, G."
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Item Open Access Effect of NaCl and SO2 on the stress corrosion cracking of CMSX-4 at 550°C(Taylor and Francis, 2023-05-01) Duarte Martinez, Fabian; Syed, Adnan; Dawson, K.; Tatlock, G. J.; Morar, N. I.; Kothari, M.; Tang, C.; Leggett, J.; Mason-Flucke, J. C.; Gibson, G.; Nicholls, Nicholls, John R.; Gray, Simon; Castelluccio, Gustavo M.In the pursuit of more efficient gas turbine engines, components are required to operate for longer times at elevated temperatures. This increased time in service, together with a complex loading regime, can expose the material to environmental attack. This work has demonstrated that the interaction of stress, NaCl and a sulphur-containing environment is critical to cause crack initiation in the early stages of the exposure and accelerated corrosion rates in CMSX-4 at 550°C. The effect of having small concentrations of moisture in the gaseous environment or as water crystallisation in the salt is still to be investigated. A working hypothesis is that the interaction of alkali chlorides with a sulphur-containing atmosphere is the trigger to a self-sustaining cycle where metal chloride formation, vaporisation and oxidation lead to high amounts of hydrogen injection in a rapid manner and, therefore, hydrogen embrittlement.Item Open Access Environmentally assisted cracking of a single crystal nickel-based superalloy(Taylor and Francis, 2023-03-03) Dawson, Karl; Duarte Martinez, Fabian; Gray, Simon; Nicholls, John; Gibson, G.; Leggett, J.; Tatlock, G. J.Single crystal material, of CMSX-4® alloy composition, was cast and secondary orientation was controlled at the machining stage, to produce c-ring cross-section tubes with known crystallographic orientations. The c-ring tubes were coated with NaCl before being subject to loading up to 700MPa and heated for durations of up to 2 hrs at 550°C in flowing environments containing air and SO2. No cracking was observed in short term tests that were run in the absence of either NaCl, or SO2, indicating a symbiotic interaction is required to initiate cracking. Experiments confirm the presence of oxygen, chlorine and sulphur at the crack tips, formed along {001} crystallographic planes, however, they were distributed discretely, with several oxide and sulphide phases observed. In this work, we image, analyse and identify the phases formed during the cracking and corrosion of CMSX-4® superalloy and hypothesise on the complex chemical interactions that take place during crack initiation.Item Open Access Investigation into the effects of salt chemistry and SO2 on the crack initiation of CMSX-4 in static loading conditions(Springer, 2020-08-29) Martinez, Fabian Duarte; Morar, Nicolau I.; Kothari, Maadhav; Gibson, G.; Leggett, J.; Mason-Flucke, J. C.; Nicholls, John R.; Castelluccio, Gustavo M.; Gray, SimonAlthough evidence exists of the potential impact of stress, co-incident with corrosive environments at high temperature, for single crystal turbine blades, the mechanism responsible is not fully understood. This work explores the effect of CaSO4, Na2SO4 and sea salt on the scale formation and crack initiation of CMSX-4 at 550°C in 50 ppm of SO2 and synthetic air under a static stress of 800 MPa. The cross-sectional analysis showed that the CaSO4 and the Na2SO4 salted specimens did not undergo a significant degree of corrosion degradation and no cracks were detected after 400 hours of exposure. However, sea salt caused significant degradation to the scale and cracks were detected by X-ray CT scanning after 400 hours of exposure. The findings from this study suggests that the sulfation of chlorine containing species in sea salt led to the formation, vaporisation and re-oxidation of metal chlorides and this mechanism was found to play a key role in the formation of a non-protective scale. An active oxidation mechanism has been proposed to interpret the results. In conclusion, it is hypothesized that due to the synergistic effect of stress and the formation of a non-protective scale, fast diffusion paths for sulfur, oxygen and chlorine ingress were formed. Further work is currently being undertaken to understand the effect of these species on the local embrittlement of CMSX-4 that ultimately led to the initiation of cracks in the specimen.Item Open Access Measurement and evaluation of co-existing crack propagation in single-crystal superalloys in hot corrosion fatigue environments(Springer, 2021-08-29) Brooking, L.; Ferguson, C.; Mason-Flucke, J.; Gibson, G.; Leggett, J.; Palmer, I.; Nicholls, John R.; Gray, SimonGas turbines blades are required to operate at high temperatures while being subjected to stress and corrosive environments. These demanding conditions have led to the need to better understand the interactions between corrosion and loading in order to improve lifing algorithms used for service interval predictions. A new crack growth measurement technique involving direct current potential difference (PD) has been developed for use in these harsh conditions. A good correlation between PD signal and crack area has been achieved. Estimations of the crack depth have been made based on fracture surface imaging, these experimentally measured crack depth propagation rates have been compared with Paris law predictions. A stress intensity factor (SIF) interaction between multiple cracks was found, where the SIF is enhanced when cracks become close. It was found that both the fatigue cycle rate and the crack shape appear to influence the SIF magnitude and the crack depth at which specimens fail, or initiate into crack propagation which is consistent with fatigue.