Crack Growth During Fatigue in Ni Superalloys: Physical Origin of Stochastic Jumps and Their Predictive Role Using Statistical Approaches

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Non-Technical AbstractStrong, durable materials are an integral part of our society. One such class of materials found in turbine engines, used in the aerospace and marine industries, are known as superalloys. Superalloys exhibit excellent mechanical properties (strength, creep resistance, corrosion resistance). However, there is a catch in that these materials involve a large degree of structural disorder as a result of the required material manufacturing process. The effects of such disorder become even more pronounced at the high temperatures of turbines, due to sustained loading conditions, leading to microscopic damage and cracks in the material. These cracks are exacerbated over the lifetime of the machinery. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the behavior of these cracks and prevent catastrophic mechanical failure.Crack initiation and growth in very heterogeneous materials not only can be detrimental but also very unpredictable, thus it requires statistical methods and protocols for assessing the reliability of components at various stages of fatigue loading. This project will advance the science of stochastic crack growth jumps during cyclic loading (fatigue) of metallic heterogeneous materials, with a particular focus on Ni superalloys. The usefulness of the mechanical noise produced by such little cracks is that it might contain distinctive statistical features that can identify the damage level in a turbine component. A team of engineers and scientists will combine multi-scale modeling approaches, statistical methods, and experiments to ultimately develop combined experiment and theory protocols for characterizing the fatigue-induced "cracking noise" and assessing the damage levels of mechanical components. Beyond superalloys, the very outcome of this research is to promote the progress of the fundamental understanding of fatigue damage and develop non-invasive structural prognosis methods. An educational outreach program is also planned that involves graduate, undergraduate, and high-school students, as well as the general public, in the under-represented EPSCoR state of West Virginia.Technical Abstract This project will advance the understanding of stochastic jumps during fatigue loading of Ni superalloys. A multi-scale modeling approach will be employed that will combine density functional theory (DFT) predictions with phase-field modeling. Machine-learning methods will be incorporated into the phase field model, which will be trained based on conducted experiments. The outcome of this research will be the fundamental understanding of fatigue damage that may be used to predict catastrophic failures, especially when there is limited statistical sampling.A team of engineers and scientists will develop a novel pathway to predictive modeling of crack growth during fatigue loading in metallic superalloys: By statistically sampling the noise correlations at various stages of fatigue under the assumption of constant-stress short-time tests, we will build a predictive machine-learning framework using a direct multi-step forecasting strategy. In doing so, we will investigate the fundamental origin of stochastic crack growth jumps and will develop a probabilistic model that will incorporate a first-principles relationship of the cohesive energy, generated by density functional theory predictions and phase-field modeling. To validate our models, we will conduct a series of well-controlled experiments using in-situ SEM and we will track crack growth using DC resistance drop measurements. The statistical properties of crack growth noise at various stages as a function of temperature and environmental pressure will be compared to the multi-scale model predictions. The validated multi-scale model will then be used to investigate the probability distributions of crack growth events (classified in terms of crack-length changes) during the first few cycles to predict crack growth at late stages. The outcome will be a trained model that can predict failure based on early fatigue events.This research project has a societal impact based on the fundamental physical origin of crack growth jumps during fatigue loading of metallic superalloys, which are commonly used on aircraft turbines and other hardware. The aim is to develop general protocols to promote early, safe prediction of crack growth in metallic alloys. In addition to societal impact, an educational outreach program is planned that involve training graduate, undergraduate, and high-school students, as well as the general public, in the under-represented EPSCoR state of West Virginia. The focus of training will be on the use of computational modeling materials science as well as the deep understanding of basic physical properties of crack growth, fracture, and non-equilibrium rare events. The PI will design a course that will introduce the fundamentals of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and fracture to multidisciplinary, undergraduate engineering environments.