An experimental method to obtain the hard alpha anomaly distribution for titanium alloy aeroengine disks

A probability-based damage tolerance methodology has been proposed to improve the recognition of material anomalies, especially hard alpha (TiN) anomalies for aeroengine rotor disks. A key input to this method is hard alpha anomaly distribution, which reflects the occurrence rate and size of anomalies present in the finished part material of titanium rotors. Since anomalies rarely occur naturally, an experimental method is proposed to obtain the anomaly distribution for titanium alloy aeroengine disks to reflect and equivalently replace the manufacturing development in titanium industry. In general, the anomaly distribution information can be divided into two parts: the Probability of Detection (POD) curve and the detected anomaly distribution, which contains the size and frequency data of the detected anomalies. The distribution can be established based on several appropriate assumptions and derivation steps with different confidence levels of POD curves and detected anomaly distributions. In this case, the distribution can be obtained in a relatively short time as a key input to the probability-based damage tolerance methodology. Then the Probability of Failure (POF) can be calculated, and the value is found to vary with different confidence levels. On this basis, the conservative estimated POF can be obtained in conjunction with confidence levels.