Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Failure analysis and materials development of gas turbine blades

B. Swain a,⇑, P. Mallick b, S. Patel a, R. Roshan a, S.S. Mohapatra c, S. Bhuyan a, M. Priyadarshini d,
B. Behera a, S. Samal a, A. Behera a
a
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha 769008, India
b
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Koraput, Odisha 763004, India
c
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha 769008, India
d
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha 769008, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the current review, the failure analysis of gas turbine blades and to overcome those failures the devel-
Received 2 January 2020 opment of materials have been discussed. The properties of a gas turbine blades should have exhibit have
Received in revised form 21 February 2020 been reported in the current review. In addition to the above, the importance of coating in gas turbine
Accepted 24 February 2020
blade has been listed. After the brief investigation of the failure analysis and materials developed it is
Available online xxxx
observed that still there are some properties to be developed to obtain an optimum gas turbine blade.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International
Gas turbine
Blades
Conference on Processing and Characterization of Materials.
Failure
Materials
Coating

1. Introduction reason behind the reduction of economic performance is the blade

The pathway of the development of the gas turbine perfor-
mance go through an increase in engine’s efficiency, reliability,
lifespan, capacity and a decrease in fuel consumption and
expenses. The initial feedings for an efficient gas turbine engine
are high temperature inlet gas, high pressure turbine feeding, using
more resilient materials and method of manufacturing. The inlet
gas first goes through the compressor and in compressor both
pressure and temperature of the gas increase considerably before
going to combustion chamber then the gas from combustion
chamber goes to the turbine for work output. So it is very essential
to take care of the initial part i.e. the compressor which provides
the input to the engine. In compressor, the major role is of the
blades, which helps to increase the pressure of gas during passing
through it. Blade damage results in a decrease in pressure of the
gas in the compressor. So the material of the compressor blade
should consist of high mechanical, thermal and physical properties
so that it can survive in the extreme environment. The aerospace
industries in India is now at an inflexion point. So to optimize
the economic performance, new emerging materials need to be
developed to improve the overall efficiency of the aircraft through
increasing the life span of the components [1]. One of the major
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: 516mm1011@nitrkl.ac.in (B. Swain).
surface deterioration of the turbine and compressor of an aircraft
by solid particle erosion wear. So in the current review, the inves-
tigation of failure due to solid particle erosion wear and the mate-
rials development to overcome this failure have been discussed.
2. Failure analysis of gas turbine blades
During the take-off and landing of the aircraft in a harsh envi-
ronment, compressor blades become the first victim of hard parti-
cles from the surrounding. The surface removal process due to the
impingement of hard particles entrained by a fluid is known as
solid particle erosion wear [2–4]. Particle erosion wears in the
compressor blade results in reduction of blade chord, damage of
leading and trailing edges, and the increase in blade surface rough-
ness [5–7]. Several researchers have investigated the failure analy-
sis on blades of turbo-machineries. Azevedo et al. have done the
failure analysis of a steam turbine blade made of 12% Cr-NiMoV
martensitic steel and observed that the seed for the failure of the
blade was a foreign particle. The ingestion of these particles on
the blade surface resulted in wear grooves which were acting as
the driving force for the crack nucleation and stress concentration
[8]. Carter et al. has investigated about the common failures of the
gas turbine blades and found out that the penetration of the solid
materials like detritus and other abrasive materials can prompt the
blade damage [9]. The failure analysis of a gas turbine rotor blade

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.02.859
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Processing and Characterization of Materials.

Please cite this article as: B. Swain, P. Mallick, S. Patel et al., Failure analysis and materials development of gas turbine blades, Materials Today: Proceedings,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.02.859
2 B. Swain et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 1. Images of damaged compressor blades.

by Kumari et al. revealed that the core wear mechanisms on the
leading and trailing edges are the cuts, dents and nicks. These wear
effects were the consequences of the pitting action caused by local-
ized oxidation at the substrate/coating interface [10]. Khajavi et al.
performed an investigation on the first stage of gas turbine blade
failure and finally, he got two major mechanisms of blade failure
(hot corrosion combined with solid particle erosion wear) [11].
Qu et al. observed from the failure analysis of a gas turbine blade
manufactured of IN738 nickel-base super-alloy and concluded that
the porosity flaws in the blade trailing edge were the main cause
behind the fatigue fracture and instantaneous fracture in the blade
[12]. Hou et al. analysed the failure reasons of gas turbine blades
and found that blade tip/casing rub strap impact was also a cause
of fatigue failure of the blade [13]. A graphical representation of the
compressor blade damages occurred due to solid particle erosion
wear is shown in the (Fig. 1).
3. Materials development for gas turbine blades
Several steps have been initiated to acquire an optimized mate-
rial and method for getting a successful piece of the blade which is
having all the required properties. From the early 50 s the techno-
logical developments of the gas turbine/compressor blades have
been started. The history of the gas turbine/compressor blades
spectacle the journey from wrought materials to coatings [16].
All the efforts made by the researchers are given by the (Table 1)
and a graphical representation of the evolution of gas turbine blade
manufacturing is shown in (Fig. 2).

Table 1
Reported literature about possible methods of gas turbine blades manufacturing.

Without coating
Authors Materials and methods Issues
Backman et al. [1] Conventional investment casting of nickel based alloys. Could not survive at high temperature. Grain boundary cracking
of casts.
Versnyder et al. [2–6] Directional solidification of nickel based superalloy (Mar-M200). Having lower creep strength, axial thermal fatigue resistance and
oxidation resistance [7]. Strengthening phase c’ was compara-
tively small.
Duhl et al. [8–12] Directional solidification of nickel based superalloy (Mar-M200) Limitations concerning chemical content variability [13].
+ hafnium (Hf). Other alloys are also manufactured by this process
such as IN 792 and IN 939 etc.
Caron et al. [14] Single crystal Ni based superalloy Creep strength was low. [14]
With coating
Authors Materials and methods Issues
Warnes et al. [15–21] Diffusion coating (pack cementation aluminizing, Chemical It is a non-line-of-sight technique. Expensive due to improper
vapour deposition (CVD) process, out of contact). masking and tooling [22].
Nicholls et al. [23–27] Overlay coating (like physical vapour deposition (PVD), electron Limitation of PVD or EBPVD processes are it becomes more
beam physical vapour deposition (EBPVD), air plasma spraying complex with the increase in complexity of chemical composition
(APS),) of MCrAlY on nickel based super-alloys. [28].
Clarke et al. [29–38] Thermal barrier coating (like APS, EBPVD, Suspension plasma Bond coat has to be coated to increase the adhesion strength of
spraying) of Yttria-stabilized Zirconia (YSZ). the top coat and substrate. So it will be more expensive to coat
both the bond coat and top coat.

Please cite this article as: B. Swain, P. Mallick, S. Patel et al., Failure analysis and materials development of gas turbine blades, Materials Today: Proceedings,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.02.859
 B. Swain et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

5. Conclusion

After sufficient review, the following conclusions are obtained,

 The failure of the gas turbine blades is mainly due to the fatigue,
solid particle erosion wear, oxidation of the trailing edge and
corrosion of the surface.
 The coating is very much essential for the protection of the
blade surface from erosion and corrosion and also to increase
the reliability of the blade. Among all the coatings, thermal
spray coating is widely used for aerospace application for better
properties.
 The coating should have corrosion and oxidation resistance,
erosion resistance, coating and alloy interfacial stability, coating
adhesion and aerodynamic properties to sustain the harsh envi-
ronment of aerospace.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

B. Swain: Conceptualization, Methodology. P. Mallick: Project

administration. S. Patel: Data curation. R. Roshan: Writing - orig-
inal draft. S.S. Mohapatra: Visualization. S. Bhuyan: Formal analy-
sis. M. Priyadarshini: Writing - review & editing. B. Behera:
Fig. 2. Evolution of gas turbine blade. Validation. S. Samal: Resources. A. Behera: Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

4. Mechanical properties of aerofoil coating
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
In the end, there is still much room for developments in mate-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
rials and methods for gas turbine blades manufacturing. Before
to influence the work reported in this paper.
considering a coating material for compressor blades of gas turbine
we have investigated about the required properties of coating
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