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Bulkhead ring fasteners, four in total, were found fractured in a large gas turbine engine after 1700 operating hours and a high number of engine starts and shut-downs for such a relatively short time in service. A metallurgical failure investigation was ordered by the client for determining the metallurgical cause of the cracking. The subject bolts failed due to high-stress low cycle fatigue fracture.

All the jaws of a four-jaw chuck mounted on the faceplate of a large lathe were received by the material testing laboratory to undergo metallurgical failure analysis. Each of the four jaws exhibited cracks in the fillet radius between one of the gripping surfaces and the long horizontal part. The cracks were just visible to the unaided eye und had been discovered by an alert mechanic. One of the jaws was selected for further material analysis for which the crack was opened to undergo fractographic evaluation. The analysis also involved the evaluation of the material using optical emission spectrometry, the preparation of a metallographic sample, and hardness testing. The cracks occurred as a result of repeated overload at the crack initiation sites located in the fillet radius. This was not a single overload event which would not have caused the jaws to crack, but a series of overload events. The situation did not pose a safety hazard to the staff since the soft and tough core of the case-hardened jaws would have retarded, if not stopped, crack growth. A sudden disastrous failure of the jaws by breaking off, for example, and extremely heavy components crashing down as a result were not an imminent threat. This dangerous failure scenario would have been enabled if the jaws had been through-hardened. Instead, casehardening heat treatment had been applied which is the correct choice for this type of component.

Hydrocarbon leaks were repeatedly found in the client’s refinery. Because of the recurring nature of this failure, the operator approached the authors’ laboratory to get a second opinion on the metallurgical root cause of the failure. It was known from the customer that corrosive species, such as ammonium chloride salt precipitates, are present in the subject diesel hydrotreating unit (DHT). From the findings obtained in the investigation that is the subject of this contribution, the conclusion of the original metallurgical root cause analysis (RCA), namely that the subject piping failed by transgranular chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (Cl-SCC), could be verified and is indeed correct. The metallurgical root cause of the small bore piping (SBP) failure is chloride-induced SCC. The morphology of the cracking is very distinct and is clearly consistent with transgranular Cl-SCC. A material change to the nickel-base material Alloy 625, already considered by the client, since this alloy is believed to be immune to chloride-induced SCC, would be a good, even though expensive solution. It should be emphasized that there are no metallic materials completely resistant to SCC. If the environment is harsh enough, except for some titanium alloys, i. e., if the source of the chloride ions cannot be eliminated, which is likely the case here, a regular inspection and replacement of these SBP systems might have to be considered. It should further be emphasized that a chloride concentration below 50 ppm is by no means any guarantee for the avoidance of SCC, since chlorides can concentrate in crevices, corrosion pits and such, i. e., the local concentration is what matters, not the local.

A fractured transition side seal retainer, together with an intact piece for reference, was received from the client on December of 2023. The subject part fractured next to the fastening hole, liberating a long ligament that was never found but reportedly caused some damage to hot gas path components downstream of a large gas turbine engine. It is speculated that the subject side seal retainer fractured due to high-stress, not fully reversed bending high cycle fatigue failure. It is recommended to make the design sturdier by considering dampening the long free length of the part, and by specifying a larger fillet radius in the initiation area. Also, over-torquing upon assembly of the subject part should be avoided.

Heat treatment (HT) problems, or the lack of necessary HT, are a regular topic of discussion in the papers published in this section Failure Analysisof Practical Metallography.In this present contribution, a case study is presented that shows how an erroneous furnace run almost caused the scrapping of an entire engine set of Metallic Heat Shields (MHS) of a heavy-duty gas turbine engine. The authors readily admit that the subject components did not fail. They were not even put in engine service yet. That means that this case study does not describe a failure in the original sense of the word. However, from a metallurgical point of view, it is still an interesting case that shows that without proper scrutiny during metallurgical investigation in the laboratory, considerable economic loss could have resulted from a simple fabrication problem, that involved a malfunctioning control system of a heat treatment furnace. It was concluded from the metallurgical investigation that is the subject of this contribution that an almost tripled soaking time during aging, i. e., precipitation hardening, of an entire engine set of MHS did not cause any microstructural alterations that could have detrimentally affected mechanical properties of the subject components.

In this contribution, a fabrication problem is discussed, related to Laser Beam Welding (LBW). Strictly speaking, the case study presented herein does not constitute a failure as such, since the subject components never made it to component service. In the narrow sense of the word, a component failure happens if and when a part does no longer serve its proper function. This is definitely not the case in the study put forward in this paper. However, one could argue that a product that cannot be marketed for lack of certain properties, or because of certain shortcomings, is rendered worthless for the manufacturer and this, in turn, could be considered a failure. In this case study, the issue of discoloration on the surfaces of welded austenitic stainless steel is discussed. This is a well-known and well-researched fabrication problem. Dependent upon service conditions of affected parts, discoloration might be detrimental to the normally outstanding corrosion resistance of this class of high-alloy steels.

A heavy-duty gas turbine engine at the heart of a seawater desalination plant on the Arabian Peninsula exhibited multiple impact damages on their compressor airfoils that were detected during an inspection. Many blades showed heavily damaged airfoils and some even lost fractured-off parts. One moving blade in row 8 lost 50 % of its airfoil. Most compressor blade tips from stages 4 to 15 were damaged and bent. It was reported from the site that turning gear operation had been omitted once after engine shut-down in the recent past, i. e., the still hot rotor had not been turned until cool-down, resulting in rotor bend. This is believed to have caused the tip rubbing and airfoil break-off during the next engine start.

The aim of this contribution is to review cases of repeated snap ring failures in large gas turbine engine service due to intergranular attack, or intergranular corrosion, IGC, and to shed some light on metallurgical aspects of the wet corrosion resistance of the subject high-alloy martensitic stainless chromium steel X39CrMo17-1, DIN 1.4122. It is important to note that only snap rings, a.k.a. retaining rings for bores or Seeger rings, were affected by those failures, namely fractures resulting from intergranular attack (IGA, Kornzerfall). It was determined that the metallurgical root cause of failure was sensitization, resulting from secondary chromium carbide precipitation at grain boundaries (GB), and the ensuing chromium depletion in narrow bands adjacent to the GB, which rendered the matrix there sensitive to selective corrosion (the chromium content in these narrow seams, measuring only a few 10 nm in width, drops below the corrosion resistance threshold of ca. 10.5 %). Snap rings, as the name suggests, require a certain “snappiness” to serve their purpose. It is because of this requirement that all snap rings that experienced failures in the field were heat treated per DIN EN 10088-2, providing for a low tempering temperature of max. 250 °C, leading to a relatively high hardness of ca. 580 HV 10, providing said “snappiness”. It turned out that the microstructure resulting from this heat treatment (H/T) is sensitized, rendering the material sensitive to IGA. To the knowledge of the authors, no other components made of this martensitic stainless chromium steel are given this H/T, but rather a high-temperature tempering of 650 °C–750 °C per DIN EN 10088-3, producing a lower hardness in the order of ca. 300 HV 10 and largely a lack of “snappiness”, the latter being not required by those non-snap ring applications. Metallurgically, it became clear that high-temperature tempering per DIN EN 10088-3 eliminates sensitization by “backfill” diffusion of chromium from the non-depleted matrix into formerly depleted regions next to GB. It was therefore decided in the authors’ organization to eliminate X39CrMo17-1 per DIN EN 10088-2 as a possible material selection. The metallurgical investigations described in this contribution corroborate and support this decision.

One of the objectives of this series of case studies presented in section Failure Analysisof Practical Metallographyis to educate colleagues who are new in the field, to inform them about failure mechanisms, not least about the rarer, more exotic ones and about metallurgical causes of failure that were utterly unexpected to occur in the particular failure case studies presented here. The subject of this contribution is a failure mechanism called Strain-assisted Grain Boundary Oxidation (SAGBO). This failure mechanism is not rare at all in hot-going nickel-base components in the aerospace industries. However, SAGBO was certainly unexpected to occur in large pipes that remained well below 400 °C in service.

This paper is a compilation of failure analysis case studies exploring the subject of inadequate heat treatment. As with other papers in this series, the presented failure cases are rather simple and may appear trivial to the experienced failure analyst. The authors can guarantee however, that minor heat treatment errors are committed easily and have a considerable damage potential which may entail heavy financial losses. Therefore, cases of inadequate heat treatment or a complete lack of necessary heat treatment belong by all means in the column Failure Analysis. The metallurgical subject of these failure cases are low-alloy hardenable steels without exception. Common heat treatment processes such as induction hardening, case hardening, nitriding as well as through-hardening and tempering will be touched upon.

The failure of fastening elements in electrical terminal blocks was attributed to various material-related causes. While the casehardened terminal screws broke due to hydrogen embrittlement, the material-related cause of the plastic deformations of the roof-shaped washers and the stripping of the threads of the square nuts are undersizing and an insufficient strength for this particular application.

Transverse through-wall airfoil cracking was found in a row 3 twin turbine vane segment of a type used in heavy-duty gas turbine engines for power generation. A laboratory investigation determined liquation cracking (LC), a hot cracking mechanism, as the metallurgical cause of failure. As became apparent only after the investigation, the root cause of failure was a malfunctioning plasma gun used for thermal spraying the thermal barrier ceramic top coat onto the subject part.

A metallographic section from the crack area of an exhaust gas turbocharger was supplied by the customer. The shaft made of quenched and tempered low-alloy steel and the charger wheel made of a nickel-based superalloy were joined by laser welding. For design reasons, the root side of the weld contained a geometric notch, at which a high cycle fatigue crack initiated during the test facility operation of the turbocharger. At the time of examination, it went through almost the entire weld root. As a corrective action, it was recommended that the welded joint be replaced by a shrink fit.

The damage case dealt with in the present work relates to a generally less common manufacturing defect that was discovered during its installation. The part was sourced from a supplier. An installation of the defective part in a large gas turbine engine used for energy generation could thus be prevented. The defect, a solidification crack, could have been repaired by welding and the component could have been used for operation. Instead, it was subjected to destructive examinations aiming at identifying what caused the crack. As the component could not possibly perform its function prior to being repaired by welding we are, in any event, talking about a damage case. The solidification crack initiated at a site of oxide infiltration. It was thus clearly a casting defect. The respective supplier was advised to reduce the content of non-metallic inclusions by the use of ceramic filters when the material is poured into the shell mold and a better control of the vacuum in the casting furnace.

When selecting case studies for presentation in this section Failure Analysisof Practical Metallography, the authors of this contribution asked themselves time and again what conditions actually constitute a component failure. Conventional wisdom has it that a failure occurred when a component or assembly lost its function intended by design. The authors readily admit that this is decidedly not the case for the “failure” presented in this contribution. Not only did no failure occur (the component was successfully used in engine service for the intended operating time), but the subject turbine blade did not loose its intended function by any stretch of the imagination. Why is this case study then presented here anyway? Because the evaluation and assessment of severity of indications found upon non-de structive testing of the subject turbine blade was only possible after destructive metallurgical investigation. One could jokingly concede that the blade definitely lost its function after metallographic cut-up. In any case, in the “failure case” presented in this contribution, the engineering department did not dare to release the subject turbine component for renewed engine service after refurbishment, since indications were detected that could not be properly assessed, without destroying the part; hence the subject component was not fit for engine service. The inclined reader may himself decide whether this fact makes it a component failure.

Protector tubes for temperature sensors were welded onto experimental gas turbine compressor blades. While the blades were made of a high alloy hard-martensitic stainless chromium steel, a high alloy metastable austenitic stainless steel was used for the tiny protector tubes. The dissimilar weld joint was applied using manual GTAW. A large amount of blocky delta ferrite formed in the HAZ immediately adjacent to the fusion line, on the side of the martensitic steel. Delta ferrite in such dissimilar welds might detrimentally affect the mechanical properties of the weld joint. It was therefore recommended not to use the affected experimental blades in test engine service. Even though no failure occurred in this case, one was prevented by declaring the subject instrumented parts unfit for test engine service.

Linear Friction Welding (LFW) is a rarely used joining technology. To test the suitability of this solid-state process for hot cracking-sensitive nickel base superalloys, tests were performed using conventionally and directionally cast slabs of Alloy 247. Since LFW does not involve melting of the weld flanks, there were some expectations that this special welding technique could overcome the poor weldability of Alloy 247. However, all tested specimens failed by liquation cracking (LC) within the Weld Center Zone (WCZ) at the directionally cast side.

Several high-pressure lift oil pump failures were reported from the field. These assemblies are used to inject lubrication oil into the sliding bearings of heavy rotating turbomachinery equipment, such as steam and gas turbine rotors, often weighing in excess of a hundred tons. This ensures that the rotor shaft “floats” on a lube oil film even at low rotational speeds, when hydro-dynamic lubrication conditions have not yet been fully established. A fractured spline shaft, which was the driven shaft of one of the failed pumps, was received from the client for the determination of the metallurgical root cause of failure. The subject spline shaft failed due to torsional overload. This cracked the hardened case and initiated high cycle fatigue (HCF) cracking as secondary damage. The main fatigue cracks were nucleated at overload fractures in the hardened case, in the fillet radii at the base of the teeth of the spline shaft. No evidence of any material defects that could have contributed to the failure or could even have been causative for it was found.

The case of damage presented here relates to the switching bridge of a medium voltage switch, a so-called make switch. Such assemblies are used for fast high current switching operations in medium voltage technology. The copper switching bridge failed due to low-cycle fatigue fractures symmetrically initiated where the transition radius between the copper bridge and the shaft was too sharp. The primary cause of the damage was the fact that the design principle of avoiding too sharp transition radii was needlessly violated where there were no apparent structural limitations. It is remarkable that, time and again, the violation of the same simple design rules causes component damages. The respective simple principles of good design practice thus violated are the same in virtually any mechanical engineering sector.

Large hot-rolled rings made of Alloy 718 were used as semi-finished product for turbomachinery components. Samples taken from one such ring exhibited non-uniform mechanical properties, partly below specified limits. Too high a volume fraction of delta phase in the microstructure was identified as the metallurgical root cause of failure. The case study presented in this contribution shows that such deviation from specified material properties does indeed constitute component failure, since the subject raw forging could not be used as is for fabrication of rotating equipment for gas turbine engines. To salvage the subject part and avoid having to scrap it at high cost, successful heat treatment tests were performed in the laboratory with the aim of eliminating delta phase to an extent, sufficient for property recovery. Heat treatment parameters were derived and recommended to the client. They were successfully applied before final machining and the subject hot-rolled ring was salvaged.

Metallic heat shields, used in combustion chambers of heavy-duty gas turbine engines and made of nickel-based superalloys, were accidentally heat treated during fabrication, using wrong parameters. There were concerns about embrittlement. Nondestructive metallurgical material characterization using the replica technique verified embrittlement by secondary phases. In spite of this, it was recommended to the client to use the affected parts as is, this on the grounds that no grain growth was observed and hardness was not elevated. While the case study presented in this contribution may appear trivial at first sight, it interestingly shows how metallographic examinations may sometimes be performed non-destructively, without sacrificing any engine components. The inclined reader should also note the superb quality of the photomicrographs presented in this contribution. They were taken from replica foils, not actual metallographic sections.

The failure of a coupling in a two-feet light railway occurred when the engine began to move out of a station. According to the machinist who operated the steam engine at the time of failure, a number of railcars were coupled to the engine. The railcars carried an unusual high number of passengers but were not over-loaded. The crack was driven by a mode that was cyclic in nature. The crack propagated in a fully reversed bending mode. It could be ascertained that the crack propagated in a low cycle fatigue (LCF) mode.

In this contribution, the most interesting and educational failure cases are presented that the author came across during his over twenty years of laboratory practice as manager of the Materials Testing Laboratory of the Berlin Gas Turbine Plant of Siemens’ Power and Gas Division. The case studies are presented and categorised in accordance with VDI Guideline 3822, the German failure analyst’s guide to the subject of how to organise and run a root cause failure analysis. An effort was made to have each of the main four categories of failure causes represented, namely failures due to mechanical loading, corrosive failures, failures due to thermal loading, and tribological failures. Case studies include turbomachinery components that failed due to tensile overload, stress corrosion cracking, intergranular corrosion, hydrogen embrittlement, hot cracking, fretting, erosion, and galling. Affected components include valves, retaining rings, tubing and piping, burners, rotor disks, lifting lugs, and casings. Some of the presented cases were published in the new section “Failure Analysis” of Practical Metallography between October 2011 and the present time. Others were oral presentations at the Metallography conferences and at the annual failure analysis conferences “VDI Jahrestagung Schadensanalyse”, held during that time. The focus of discussion of the failure cases in this paper is the metallurgical evaluation of failure causes. This is the approach taken in many small and industrial laboratories. A holistic approach of a failure case, which includes calculation and simulation methods such as finite element analysis, and which also implies a knowledge of the service stresses intended by design as well as the actual loading situation of the failed part, is not the aim of this contribution.

A severely deformed and cracked lashing-load ring of a heavy-duty gas turbine engine was received from the client as-delivered from the site. The damage was found upon a regular non-destructive inspections (NDT). A metallurgical failure investigation was ordered to determine whether there was microstructural damage due to excessive thermal loads, whether there were any other material defects that could have contributed to the failure, or whether the lifting lug was abused or overloaded in any way, and whether this was the only cause of failure. It was determined that the subject lifting lug failed by tensile/bending overload.

Failure analysts are sometimes surprised to find well-known metallurgical failure mechanisms at work in completely unexpected places. This contribution is an eloquent example for just such an incidental convergence of well-known failure mechanism and fabrication process where it was not reported to have previously occurred. Liquid Metal Embrittlement (LME) was observed in Narrow Gap Welds (NGW) produced for Welding Procedure Qualification (WPQ). The embrittling liquid metal was copper in this case. It is believed to have originated from copper backing used for weld pool protection. It was recommended to replace copper backing with ceramic weld pool protection.

Supposedly simple cases of failure are most often best suited to communicate the principles of component failure analysis in the field of materials engineering to a wide readership, especially to those peers in the specialist community who are just beginning to familiarize themselves with the subject. The present case of failure relates to components that failed as early as during the assembly, and more specifically, during the final assembly stage of combustion chamber components for heavy-duty gas turbine engines. Hence, they lost their functionality (in fact, the common definition of component failure). At tightening torques of the nuts opposite of the tapered heads as low as below 25 Nm, so-called twistoff bolts which, when welded into combustion chamber sheets, take on the function of stud bolts, sheared off. By way of exception, a materialographic failure analysis could show that the primary cause of the failure was not the component’s design, but the disregard of the drawing specifications during final assembly. However, on a secondary level, design deficiencies had to be mentioned, as untempered welded joints in martensitic chromium steels invariably act as metallurgical notches. If the respective part is subjected to dynamic loads, as is the case in virtually all turbo machinery, they are thus to be avoided.

In this contribution, a case study is presented describing the failure of a combustion chamber assembly in a non-OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) gas turbine engine used for power generation. It showed how even advanced fabrication methods, such as Electron Beam (EB) welding, could trigger fatigue fracture, even if there are no material defects, no weld imperfections, no fabrication flaws, and even if everything is within specified limits. As is so often the case in component failures, the fact that failures occur anyway, despite the absence of out-of-spec material properties, and even though there were no fabrication flaws, is attributable to the design; which is often not sturdy enough to withstand unexpected dynamic loading.

Short fillet welds used to fasten a large retainer ring to so-called dog bone seals failed in the turbine exhaust casing of a non-OEM heavy-duty gas turbine engine used for power generation. The subject fillet welds fractured due to high cycle fatigue loading. Neither weld imperfections nor any other material defects were found that could have contributed to the failure. It was concluded that an unfavorable design, specifying very short fillet welds for fastening the dog bone seal segments to the retainer ring, was the root cause of failure. In a purely static loading situation, this design would probably not have failed. However, in a dynamic loading scenario as is the case in any gas turbine engine exhaust, such a design is simply not sturdy enough.

Exhaust stack liners of a test rig for gas turbine burners failed locally by ruptured fasteners and fallen-off liner plates. Misalignment of the plating relative to each other and relative to their fasteners caused restraint of the expanding and shrinking liner plates upon start-up and shutdown of the burner rig. The fastening holes of the failed liner plates were not concentric, but misaligned relative to each other and relative to their fastener bolts. This exerted a shear loading on the threads of the fastening bolts, which in turn caused a mean stress shift and damaged the threads of the fasteners by nicking. So pre-loaded, the fastening bolts were not able to withstand the vibratory loads from the flowing exhaust gases and failed due to fatigue.

Elastic sealing elements used in combustion chamber assemblies of heavy-duty gas turbine engines used for power generation fractured from high cycle fatigue failure. The subject assembly was burner rig tested in a special testing facility. It was speculated that the affected spring seals likely failed due to forced excitation during burner rig testing, since no material imperfections or fabrication flaws, such as spot weld imperfections, were detected that could have contributed to the failure.

Severe scaling caused the guiding pin of two control valves of a smaller industrial steam turbine to seize which thus led to a malfunction. The customer sought clarification on whether the oxidation products are really common scale. This could be confirmed.

The up-scaling of the pyrolysis technologies is the next step to achieve the industrial scale and to fulfill the energy and petrochemical demand in large-scale units. The overall goal of this study is to up-scale the Thermo-Catalytic Reforming (TCR) technology from the laboratory to the pilot unit. In the previous part of the study, the up-scaling was studied experimentally in regard to the product yields and qualities. Therefore, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study is carried out to investigate the effects of up-scaling of the TCR system on the temperature distribution through the intermediate pyrolysis and the catalytic reforming process. A multifluid model and K-ε model are employed to simulate the TCR process for the mixture flow of sewage sludge as a solid phase and pyrolysis vapor as a gas phase. The results reveal a CFD model that can predict the heat distribution and flow velocities through the TCR system, while the deviations between simulation data and experimental work are considered small. The errors in the maximum biomass temperature within the auger reactor are 0.0 and 4.2% for TCR2 and TCR30, and the deviations in the solid residence time are about 0.8 and 0.74 s, respectively. Furthermore, the deviations in the vapor residence time within the post-reformer are 0.35 and 0.81 s for TCR2 and TCR30, respectively. Additionally, the CFD model provides a good platform for further simulation of the chemical reaction kinetics.

A first-stage turbine vane was received in the laboratory directly from fabrication, prior to its use in engine service. The part had not yet been covered with its customary coating system that protects these parts against hot corrosion. A first visual inspection revealed multiple cracks on the airfoil’s hot gas path side, fairly centered in the part. After cutting the part open, it soon became apparent that the cracking was even more severe inside, suggesting crack initiation from that cooled side. Fractography allowed to determine liquation cracking as the metallurgical failure mechanism. Since the part was received immediately after pre-heat before plasma coating, that process step was concluded to have caused the cracking.

Strictly speaking, this contribution is not about a case study in failure analysis. However, the investigation described herein was inspired by a failure case. A heavyduty gas turbine engine used in a power and desalination plant in the Middle East experienced creep damage and cracking in some of its row 4 turbine blades after only some 15,000 operating hours. Microstructural alterations detrimental to the creep strength of the alloy were determined to be the metallurgical root cause of the failure. It was believed that said microstructural alterations were brought about by unusual transient operating conditions in engine service. Heat treatment tests were ordered to verify or disprove this hypothesis. It was established that the peculiar gamma prime morphology found in the failed blades can be produced by very high solutioning temperatures and subsequent rapid cooling. Such conditions in engine service are conceivable if sufficient unburnt fuel enters the turbine and ignites downstream of the combustion chamber (high temperature), and if water used in fuel line purging is injected into the turbine section immediately thereafter (rapid cooling). Solutioning above 1240 °C, followed by a water quench, produced said mono-modal fine γ' morphology.

Helical tension springs used in switch mechanisms of medium voltage switches failed prematurely in test rigs. The switch mechanism assemblies did not reach the required number of cycles to failure. The springs failed by low cycle fatigue fracture. They were phosphate coated for corrosion protection but not shot peened. The material used for the springs is a usual patented spring steel. Chemical composition, mechanical properties, and microstructure of the failed springs and a reference spring alike were all unremarkable. The subject springs were assembled and rig tested at three different locations but failed only at two of them, not in the third. It was concluded that misalignment from assembly was the root cause of failure.

Fractured wire ropes of a pantograph actuator system for electrical trucks were received from the client. They failed by low cycle fatigue (LCF) fracture during service in a customized test rig. The client reported wide scatter of the number of testing cycles to failure. A laboratory order was placed for a metallurgical failure analysis of the subject stranded ropes, this to derive recommendations for design improvements, so that the minimum number of cycles to failure could be increased, and the scatter decreased.

Even very simple cases of component failure can represent an enrichment for this section Failure Analysis. Besides the instructive value of an easily understandable content, they allow those failure analysts becoming acquainted with the field to gradually get to know the most important material-related mechanisms governing component failure cases. A look back by the authors on the section Failure Analysisof Practical Metallography cases revealed only one single erosion failure case in the past 10 years. It won't therefore do any harm to address this interesting failure mechanism once again. The erosion failure of a fan impeller presented in this article was very easily solved However, it was rather unexpected. Who would have considered it possible that an air extraction system in a factory workshop is subject to such high erosive distress? Hence, the main message of this short article is that the experts tasked with investigating the component failures should be very thorough and propose all sorts of damage hypotheses, sometimes even those which, at first glance, appear unlikely, and may only reject them when the examination results indicate the contrary.

This short article presents a simple case of failure, from a materials engineering point of view. One may therefore ask what makes it worth publishing. The inclined reader, though, will notice the somewhat surprising nature of the macroscopic damage pattern. The type of defect reported in the context of the first examination of the component, which had to be performed non-destructively, was therefore wrong. This is an example of the risk of misinterpretation in cases where the customer dictates how the examination is carried out that all those working in the field of damage analysis are aware of. It also demonstrates that using the scanning electron microscope is not a luxury, not even in the manufacturing control, as some damage patterns cannot be elucidated without using this device that has revolutionized the component failure analysis.

Impingement cooling plates welded to the inner shrouds of first-stage turbine vanes were found cracked after refurbishment, before installation in a heavy-duty gas turbine engine. The metallurgical root cause of the failure was determined to be embrittlement and surface melting from thermal over-exposure. This was not brought about by engine service, but was a result of the complex repair process, part of which are several heat treatment operations. The latter are tailor-made for the base alloy of the turbine vanes. For the lower-grade impingement cooling plates, however, the peak temperature from these furnace runs was too high. They should have been removed from the vanes prior to the high-temperature heat treatment operations, but were left attached to the vanes for cost reasons.

Swivel arms in a turning gear application failed in service due to fatigue cracking. 2 out of 52 components were affected. Turning gears are mainly used to spin heavy-duty gas turbine engines rotors after shut-down to prevent distortion of the still-hot rotor. The design of the swivel arms, that was not robust enough to tolerate deviations in fabrication, was identified as the root cause of the failures.

With a novel class of heavy-duty gas turbine engines, turbine exhaust temperatures are expected to further increase. There are concerns that the propensity to cracking in service of the welded turbine exhaust casing (TEC) liners might also increase. Cold-formed “collars”, featuring large stress-reducing fillet radii, were designed to decrease thermal stresses in the welds, where the struts of the turbine bearing casing are aerodynamically clad by liner plates. Such collars were received from a supplier in the course of a product and process qualification (PPQ). The results of the metallurgical investigation ordered by an internal client are the subject of this contribution. It was found that deformation martensite was present in the subject cold-formed fillet pieces, despite a pre-heat of 150 °C and a post-fabrication 920 °C annealing process. However, the amount of deformation martensite found, at below 5 % volume fraction, was considered not to be detrimental for engine operation.

One ring of a gland seal from a gas compressor was found fractured. The failure was detected because water leaked into the leaking gas system. The supplier apparently never had issues with this assembly. The field record is unremarkable, according to the manufacturer. However, the incident natural gas compressor is used in intermittent service only, while the assembly was originally designed for more or less permanent operation, according to the supplier of the compressor.

A novel tip of a fuel gasification burner, designed-to-SLM (Selective Laser Melting) and made by SLM, was introduced by the client. This component failed prematurely by cracking at the cooled tip. The metallurgical cause of the failure was overheating due to blocked cooling passages, probably as a result of contaminated cooling water, leading to corrosion in the non-stainless piping systems upstream of the burner. Corrosion products, mainly iron oxides, spalled off said non-stainless components, causing blockages in the intricate cooling cavities of the AM-built burner tip. This lead to excessive thermal overload, reaching the melting temperature of the alloy at the burner tip. As a result, the subject burner tip failed by TMF cracking. Neither manufacturing nor design flaws were identified in the course of this failure investigation. It is speculated that the subject component will perform well if cooled properly. The root cause of the failure is the operation of the cooling water system of the subject burner that allowed loose corrosion products to form and to enter the burner tip.

In this contribution, some aspects of fractography are discussed, arguably the failure analysts' most potent analytical tool in metallurgical failure analyses. The characterisation of fracture surfaces is indispensable when it comes to getting to the bottom of things in regards to component failures. When machine parts or entire assemblies fail by fracture of individual members, the fracture surface contains the data that tells the failure analyst about the history of the failed component, and hopefully will also shed some light on the exact failure mode that eventually lead to fracture. That makes fractography, the art of reading fracture surfaces, so valuable. This applies to all material classes, i. e. metals, ceramics, and plastics alike. This paper, however, focuses on failures of metallic components only. When there is no fracture surface in a failed part, one is produced by forcing open cracks or other imperfections that might be suitable for this purpose. Once this is achieved, the failure analyst will open his or her toolset of macro- and microfractographic analysis equipment. It is not exaggerated to say that the scanning electron microscope (SEM) revolutionised the art of microfractography from the early 1960 s on. In this paper, a number of examples for this are given.

Serial fabrication of novel selective laser melted (SLM) heavy-duty gas turbine burner parts was established. This is an additive manufacturing (AM) process. Thermocouples (T/C) are manually tungsten inert gas (TIG) brazed to these components. After fabrication, they exhibited severe cracking within the brazed T/C joints and had to be scrapped. A laboratory order for a destructive metallographic investigation was placed by the client with the aim of determining the metallurgical cause of the cracking. The crack path is interdendritic. The crack propagated within the braze metal only. The crack morphology is consistent with solidification cracking (SC), a hot cracking mechanism. No evidence of liquid metal embrittlement, or LME, was found.

X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is a powerful volumetric non-destructive testing tool. In this contribution, its application for large pieces of equipment is demonstrated, after the main components of an XCT scanner are described. While the technology has been well known in the scientific community for many years, its industrial-scale use is relatively new, especially as far as very large units are concerned. In a number of case studies, the benefits to the failure analyst of readily available XCT machines will be shown. The advantages in employing non-destructive XCT for metallurgical root cause failure analysis, prior to cutting up a failed part for sectioning and opening of cracks or other imperfections, will be revealed. It will be indicated how XCT can be conveniently applied in failure cases, for the sake of both the failure analyst and the fractographer. XCT can be used as a first testing method to get an understanding of the exact location of imperfections, fields of porosity, crack systems and the like, before macro- and microstructural anomalies are opened by the fractographer. To state it more clearly, the fractographer who has a high-powered XCT, with excellent spatial resolution at his or her disposal, will never again run the risk of cutting away a crack tip that is so valuable in determining the fracture mode.

A first stage turbine vane of a heavy-duty gas turbine engine, exhibiting an outward bulge of approximately 0.6 mm and a visible crack in the top coating, was delivered by the client for a detailed destructive failure investigation. The subject component was an experimental part used in a test field engine. The suction side wall of the casting was cut off to reveal a gaping crack on the inside of the aft cavity that was also visible by borescopic inspection. The cooling insert of the aft cavity was clean and did not have any blocked cooling holes. The cooling pattern on the inside wall of the aft cavity was unremarkable. No evidence whatever of impact damage was found on the suction side surface of the subject vane in the cracked region. The hypothesis as to the most probable root cause of the cracking that is still standing is a combination of low wall thickness, non-optimal process parameters for bond coat pre-heat, and potentially high thermal/mechanical loading during engine operation. It appears this is not a wide-spread phenomenon but rather an isolated occurrence.