Study on multiple fatigue cracks growth in the web of a hollow compressor impeller

The fatigue crack growth characteristics of a hollow impeller whose thin-walled web has the propensity to nucleate multiple site damage (MSD) were investigated. To study its MSD crack growth, a simulation framework was proposed to accomplish noncoplanar crack coalescence and user-defined growth. It employed a modified linkup criterion and could account for the geometric constraints of cracked bodies, crack closure, and the kinking and twisting angle introduced by KII and KIII. Interaction features of the multisite crack growth were studied by simulating carefully designed cracking scenarios, and the crack cascade's typical evolution over time and space was deduced. Results showed that larger adjacent cracks would introduce a stronger interaction effect. For crack colonies, the stress intensity factor would increase and remain higher between different merging positions. The crack growth was predominantly in tensile mode (greater than 95%) before coalescence, whereas the in-plane and out-of-plane shear modes increased noticeably to about 30% during and after coalescence. MSD will adversely affect the impeller fatigue evaluation due to faster crack growth, more complex crack profiles, and difficulty in determining the critical crack size due to the jump-like increase of crack colonies that makes applying damage tolerance difficult.