Fatigue life prediction in the damaged and un-damaged compressor blades

Article history: Received September 20, 2013 Received in Revised form October, 14, 2013 Accepted 25 November 2013 Available online 4 December 2013 A land-based gas turbine may operate at the different environment including corrosive and dusty environments. These conditions can cause early damages in the “cold” parts as well as in the “hot” parts of the gas turbine. In this research, fatigue life of a compressor blade is predicted with and without damages. Damage is considered as a notch at the blade and is classified as three types of short, medium and long notches. These are numerically simulated in the compressor blade and fatigue crack initiation life is calculated. Stress analysis is carried out using finite element analysis followed by fatigue life calculations. Furthermore, the influence of blade tip displacement on life of the undamaged and damaged blade is investigated. Moreover, the effect of damage's size and location on blade’s life is reported. This procedure can be tuned with corrosion damages observed during the minor inspection where the gas turbines are operating in the unusual environments. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.