Three-Dimensional Nonlinear Structural Analysis Methods for Gas Turbine Engine Metallic Components and Component Assemblies

This Phase I proposal describes the development of three-dimensional, nonlinear structural analysis methods for use in prognosis systems for aerospace, gas turbine, metallic components and component assemblies. Fracture Analysis Consultants Inc (FAC) and Impact Technologies (ITech), with cooperation from Pratt & Whitney (P&W), propose to enhance an existing three-dimensional fracture propagation program, Franc3D/NG, to automatically generate finite element models that relate sensor measurable structural response to damage scenarios involving multiple fatigue cracks, crack locations, and crack sizes. These numerical results will be used to develop response surfaces that relate the rate of damage progression to multiple inputs such as loads, material properties, crack location(s), and crack size(s). The response surfaces will form the basis of probabilistic wrappers for fast predictions of remaining useful component life without the need for additional computationally intensive runs of three-dimensional finite element models.