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This paper presents the outcomes of computational mechanics applied in the root-cause investigation on hot section failure of a 25 MW gas turbo generator in the domestic power plant after 2228 start-stops and 52,586 h operation. The failure includes the complete damage of the first and the second stage of nozzles, blades, seals, shroud segments, and also a peripheral damage on the disk of first stage. Several reported cases from the different power plants with similar events evidenced that the failure is a serious common type in the mentioned gas turbine engine. A previous study on complete metallurgical analysis of disk, moving blades, and lock-pins, was done by Poursaeidi and Mohammadi (2008, 'Failure Analysis of Lock-Pin in a Gas Turbine Engine,' Eng. Fail. Anal., 15(7), pp. 847-855), which concluded that the mechanical specification of applied materials had been satisfied. Nevertheless, some problems were found in the fractographic results of lock-pins: the typical fatigue fracture surfaces in the neck of failed lock-pins and frankly localized pitting signs near the head of lock-pin. The lock-pins are kinds of small devices that lock the buckets after inserting them into disk grooves. In this work, a 3D finite element model (FEM) of a blade, a disk, and a lock-pin are made and analyzed by the ANSYS software, The results of the FEM showed a reasonable agreement between the analysis and position of fracture on lock-pins. Also, the results showed that the second vibrational mode of the bucket is a possible cause of failure because in this mode the peak stress occurs on the head of the lock-pin. However, inadequate design and long time service reduced the performance of lock-pins for sustaining a severe hot condition in the first stage of the turbine section. [DOI: 10.1115/1.3077660] Keywords: lock pin, FEM, vibration analysis, gas turbine component failure

There is an increasing interest in non-destructive and real-time high-resolution approaches for corrosion studies in metals. In this paper, we propose the dynamic speckle pattern method as a low-cost, easy-to-implement, and quasi in-situ optical technique for the quantitative evaluation of pitting corrosion. This type of corrosion occurs in a specific area of a metallic structure and causes holes formation leading to structural failure. A Custom 450 stainless steel sample, placed in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution and applied to a [Formula: see text] potential to initiate the corrosion, is used as the sample. The speckle patterns formed by the scattering of a He-Ne laser light is changed over time due to any corrosion in the sample. The analysis of the time-integrate speckle pattern suggests that the growth rate of pitting decreases with time., (© 2023. The Author(s).)