Development of portable single crystal residual stress analyzer

Directionally solidified nickel superalloys are commonly used in turbine blades for high temperature aircraft and space propulsion engines and land-based, high-efficiency power generating plants. The surfaces of these parts are mechanically treated to provide compressive residual stress for deferring fatigue crack initiation which is essential to meeting the service life of the part. Efficient and direct quantitative measurements of residual stress in turbine blade surfaces and subsurfaces are now of paramount importance in view of recent engine failiures and aircraft mishaps. There does not currently exist a non-destructive method to directly measure the residual stress in turbine blades. X-Ray Optical Systems (XOS) of East Greenbush, NY proposes to develop a compact, low power, portable x-ray diffraction analyzer for directly and non-destructively measuring the residual stress in turbine blades in factory production lines or in the field. This is enabled by novel, proprietary polycapillary x-ray optics and highly stable and reliable X-Beam x-ray sources developed by XOS which have been successfully applied to in-line measurements of crystal texture of superconducting thin films and on-line measurements of phase distributions in steel plating factories.