Metallurgical factors affecting the crack growth resistance of a superalloy

During creep loading of IN-792, grain boundary morphology in conjunction with grain size strongly affected crack propagation. Compositional variations and fabrication techniques showed no significant effect. A primary requirement for materials to be used in gas turbine engine discs is satisfactory resistance to crack growth resistance in the 650 to 760°C range. Both conventional smooth and machine notched stress-rupture samples and dead weight loaded fatigue precracked fracture toughness specimens were evaluated in this study. Creep fractures took place by grain boundary cracking followed by rapid transgranular fractures. Composition variations had only very slight effects on crack propagation. Materials hot worked from castings had the same properties as those made by powder metallurgy techniques. The primary factors influencing the crack growth behavior were the grain size and grain shape. Increasing grain size markedly improved the toughness. By slow cooling through the gamma prime solvus a serrated grain boundary structure was developed that also improved the cracking resistance. Earlier creep fracture toughness studies have shown that the slow crack growth behavior can be described by a critical strain model in which the crack propagation is controlled by the yield strength, grain size, and a critical strain parameter. The present results are consistent with this model, with serrated grain boundaries introducing a four-fold increase in the critical strain parameter over that of smooth grained material.