Modelling of the fatigue crack growth of a coated single crystalline nickel-based superalloy under thermal mechanical loading

The focus of this paper is the simulation of fatigue crack growth of the coated single crystalline nickel-based superalloy PWA 1484 under thermal mechanical loading. Thus, two physical models are superimposed in terms to firstly calculate the deformation behavior under instationary thermal and mechanical loading (TMF) and secondly to model crack propagation after initial brittle cracking of the coating layer on the basis of cyclic crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD). All material parameters implemented in the models were evaluated from monotonic isothermal tensile and creep tests as well as from isothermal low cycle fatigue (LCF) experiments. The calculated fatigue crack growth was validated by in situ crack growth measurements using the beachmark technique. Hence, crack propagation initiated by the brittle coating system closely to the experimental results using rectangular flat specimen geometry instead of corner-crack (CC) specimens. The comparison of the simulated lifetimes to the experimental results provides remarkable accuracy of the physically-based lifetime model.