Thermomechanical Fatigue Behavior of a Directionally Solidified Ni-Base Superalloy

Abstract

A continuum crystal plasticity model is used to simulate the material behavior of a directionally solidified Ni-base superalloy, DS GTD-111, in the longitudinal and transverse orientations. Isothermal uniaxial fatigue tests with hold times and creep tests are conducted at temperatures ranging from room temperature (RT) to 1038°C to characterize the deformation response. The constitutive model is implemented as a User MATerial subroutine (UMAT) in ABAQUS (2003, Hibbitt, Karlsson, and Sorensen, Inc., Providence, RI, v6.3) and a parameter estimation scheme is developed to obtain the material constants. Both in-phase and out-of-phase thermo-mechanical fatigue tests are conducted. A physically based model is developed for correlating crack initiation life based on the experimental life data and predictions are made using the crack initiation model.