John Joseph Schirra

Role of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering in Turbine Rotor Alloy Development

Material and processing technologies play a major role in enhancing performance in many industrial segments. The jet engine business is a key example where material technology advances such as single crystal turbine blades and powder metallurgy superalloy disks have enabled substantial improvements in engine efficiency and durability. Because of the high reliability demanded for engine applications, new technologies must be thoroughly evaluated in the maturation process prior to product insertion. Rapid product development and introduction are key competitive advantages in the current business environment and, in response, many technical disciplines have developed and integrated analytical modeling tools to accelerate technology development and maturation. This is especially true in the turbine engine industry where structural and performance analysis tools have been integrated to optimize product configuration. The materials discipline was notably absent from this and recognizing this shortcoming the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency launched the Accelerated Insertion of Materials Initiative which had as a strategic thrust the development of an integrated modeling capability with the objective of reducing the material technology development and maturation timeline and imbedding it in the design process. Pratt & Whitney proposed superalloy powder metallurgy turbine disks as the technology to focus development of the integrated analytical capability and the results of that effort are presented in this paper. Key capabilities that were developed include phenomenological and physics based material model development, data / model fusion experimental procedures based on Bayesian techniques and system architecture protocols for integration of analytical material models into the design process. These capabilities were applied in engineering case studies and demonstrated through component testing. This paper summarizes these developments and highlights references for more detailed technical explanations. While feasibility of integrated computational materials engineering has been demonstrated and elements of it implemented, there is much development that still needs to occur to make this strategic capability a reality.