Article

International Journal of Damage

Mechanics
0(0) 1–20
Probabilistic fatigue life ! The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1056789517737132
assessment of a high journals.sagepub.com/home/ijd

pressure turbine disc

considering load variations
Shun-Peng Zhu1,2, Qiang Liu1, Qiang Lei1 and
Qingyuan Wang2,3

Abstract
In the present work, a probabilistic framework for fatigue life prediction and reliability assessment of an
engine high pressure turbine disc is proposed to incorporate the effects of load variations and mean
stress, which provides a reference for engine structural design under a given target failure probability.
Within this framework, a new probabilistic fatigue damage accumulation model under random loadings is
elaborated based on a ductility exhaustion model, and probabilistic S  N curves for the high pressure
turbine disc under different flight missions are derived based on experimental data of turbine disc alloy
GH4169. The influence of random load variations on fatigue reliability of the high pressure turbine disc has
been investigated and quantified by combining the engine load spectrum with finite element analysis.

Keywords
Fatigue, reliability, load variation, uncertainty, life prediction, high pressure turbine disc

Introduction
As one of critical fatigue components of an aeroengine, hot section components including turbine
blades and discs are subjected to high rotational speeds at high temperatures, which usually result
into large centrifugal forces in these components and simultaneous high temperature significantly
reduces the engine component strength during the engine operation (Wang et al., 2016, 2017a,
2017b; Zhu et al., 2017). From the viewpoint of engineering design, the safe-life design concept is

1
Center for System Reliability & Safety, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
2
Key Laboratory of Deep Earth Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
3
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Corresponding author:
Qingyuan Wang, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Email: wangqy@scu.edu.cn
2 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

often introduced and reanalyzed by combining damage tolerance methods with probabilistic
approaches (Beretta et al., 2016; Blasón et al., 2016; Correia et al., 2017; Hu et al., 2012, 2016;
Huang et al., 2013; Zhu et al., 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017). Noting that the reliability of turbine
discs in a low cycle fatigue (LCF) regime is of great importance for ensuring the engine operational
safety and integrity, thus it is important to adopt a probabilistic approach in turbine disc design and life
assessment (Hu et al., 2012, 2016; Zhu et al., 2013, 2016). Typically, the structures subjected to cyclic
loadings are often designed according to probabilistic concepts by considering the scatter of material
properties and loads (permanent/variable loads) to include the target failure probability Pf . Recently,
Hu et al. (2012)8 carried out a probabilistic damage tolerance analysis of a turbine disc. In particular, the
probabilistic crack growth life of the turbine disc is estimated by quantifying the uncertainties result
from loading cycles, corrosive environment, and crack size at different service time. In order to account
for uncertainties in material properties and S  N curves, Li et al. (2014) introduced a reliability analysis
method for estimating the fatigue life distribution of a turbine blade. Through probabilistic sensitivity
analyses, Gao et al. (2016) indicated that the fatigue performance parameters have shown huge influence
on the LCF life of a turbine blade, and developed a distributed collaborative response surface (RS)
method for its fatigue reliability analysis in an LCF regime. Zhang et al. (2016) developed an advanced
multiple RS method for reliability analysis under multi-failure modes of turbine discs.
In general, high reliability of hot section components like turbine discs can be achieved by
improving its material performance, life prediction capability, and highly conservative design strat-
egy (Zhu et al., 2012). In practical applications, material properties, structural geometries, and loads,
such as rotational speeds of the high pressure turbine (HPT) disc in this analysis, are stochastic or
inherently random nature, which usually lead to the scatter in their usage lives (De Jesus et al., 2010;
Fernández-Canteli et al., 2014; Larin and Vodka, 2015; Liang and Chen, 2016; Mao et al., 2017;
Muniz-Calvente et al., 2017; Sanches et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2017; Yuan et al., 2015; Zhu et al.,
2012). For the structures designed with a long target life, Larin and Vodka(2015) analyzed the
influence of natural degradation process of material properties on statistical analysis of damage
accumulation as well as the usage lifetime. Thus, a better understanding of load variations to which
today’s engine hot section components are subjected as well as developing accurate lifing methods is
necessary (Beretta et al., 2016; Sandberg et al., 2017; Zhu et al., 2012, 2016). However, few studies
have been conducted to quantify the effect of load variations on probabilistic fatigue life prediction
and reliability assessment of turbine discs (He et al., 2016). In this regard, this paper aims to
establish a framework for probabilistic fatigue life prediction and reliability assessment of an
HPT disc by considering cyclic load variations.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Proposed procedure for probabilistic fatigue assess-
ment section elaborates a procedure for probabilistic fatigue assessment of turbine discs by quan-
tifying the scatter of S  N curves of turbine disc alloy GH4169 and finite element (FE) analysis of
an HPT disc under different flight missions. Model application to an HPT disc section verifies the
proposed procedure to an HPT disc, which conducts its probabilistic fatigue life prediction and
reliability analysis by considering variations resulting from both material performance and cyclic
loads. Finally, Conclusion section draws a conclusion of the current work.

Proposed procedure for probabilistic fatigue assessment

Material and model identification
In this section, FE analysis and calculation of an HPT disc-blade contact system under different
flight missions are carried out for probabilistic fatigue assessment. Nickel-based superalloy GH4169
Zhu et al. 3
Table 1. A 750 h-load spectrum and finite element (FE) simulation results of the HPT disc.

Maximum Von
Cyclic load levels Cycles Rotational speed (r/min) Mises stress (MPa)

Level 1 1280 0-17650-0 0-944-0

Level 2 1945 9210-17650-9210 255-944-255
Level 3 23,300 16446-17650-16446 825-944-826
HPT: high pressure turbine.

has been used in manufacture of HPT discs due to its superior mechanical properties at high tem-
peratures, which shows high resistance to oxidative corrosion under 650 C  1000 C (Du et al.,
2015; Ma and Cheng, 2017).
Under different load spectra, the aeroengines usually have shown different working lives. In this
analysis, the load spectra were collected from real-time data acquisition of aircraft engines (Huang
et al., 2012), four load cases of the HPT disc during its service life are considered, including take off,
maximum continue, cruise, and idle (Liu et al., 2005). After processed by using the rain-flow
counting method, the engine load spectrum can be divided into three cyclic load levels, namely
(take off) 0-maximum continue-0 (take off), idle-maximum continue-idle and cruise-maximum con-
tinue-cruise, which mainly cause fatigue damage of the HPT disc and are denoted as level 1 to level
3, respectively. The load spectrum of the HPT disc under 750 h is shown in Table 1 (due to confi-
dentiality, all the results have been processed).
The maximum stress point or the most dangerous region of an HPT disc can be generally located
through FE structural analysis. By interpolating the boundary conditions of elastic-plastic stress
analysis, distributions of the stress–strain response of the HPT disc can be obtained. Particularly,
based on load spectrum analysis of the HPT disc, three different cyclic load levels are applied for FE
analysis as shown in Figure 1. In this analysis, a 1/90 FE model of the HPT disc is built by using
ANSYS 14.5 platform with refined FE meshing as shown in Figure 2(a). According to temperature
distribution data obtained from field testing of the engine, a simple relationship between tempera-
ture distribution along the radius of the HPT disc can be fitted. In this regard, the temperature field
distribution of the HPT disc can be loaded for FE analysis, which is distributed along its radius
direction, as shown in Figure 2(b). Under different cyclic load levels, the maximum Von Mises stress
at the most dangerous region of the HPT disc is calculated by FE simulations as shown in
Figure 2(c), (d), and (e) and FE results in Table 1. Note from FEA results that the most dangerous
region is located at the bottom groove of the HPT disc under different flight missions, which agrees
well with practical failure positions.
During the engine operation, LCF failure of HPT discs occurs under cyclic loadings at high
temperatures. According to this, a ductility exhaustion (DE)-based fatigue model proposed in
Zhu et al. (2017) is introduced for fatigue life prediction of the HPT disc, which considers the
effect of mean stress on the fatigue life and can be drawn as

"1
in
Nf ¼ C  ð1Þ
ð"_m Þ

where C and  are material constants; "in is the inelastic strain range; "_m is the mean ratcheting
strain rate.
4 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

(a) (b)
2000 2000
Rotational speed / rad/s

Rotation speed / rad/s

1500 1500

1000 1000

500 500

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Load steps Load steps

(c)
2000
Rotational speed / rad/s

1500

1000

500

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Load steps

Figure 1. Typical cyclic load levels of the HPT disc.

When using equation (1) for turbine disc life prediction, the mean ratcheting strain rate can be
usually determined from experimental data of the turbine disc alloy like GH4169 in this analysis
(Park et al., 2007; Yao, 2015; 2010). It is worth noting that there are various factors that can affect
the ratcheting-fatigue behavior of materials, including mean stress, stress amplitude, stress rate,
temperature, and so on (Correia et al., 2013, 2017; Gallegos Mayorga et al., 2017; Wang et al.,
2017; Yu et al., 2017a, 2017b; Zhu et al., 2017). Among them, a strong relationship between the
mean ratcheting strain rate "_m and the equivalent stress amplitude ar is derived according to Dutta
et al. (2010), Date et al. (2008), and Li et al. (2012), and expressed in a power law function as

B
"_m ¼ Aar ð2Þ

where ar is the equivalent stress amplitude under mean stress corrections; A and B are material
constants fitted from experimental data under uniaxial fatigue loadings.
For ar , it is an equivalent fully reversed stress amplitude that leads the same fatigue life under the
combination of stress amplitude a and mean stress m or a specified stress ratio Rs (Zhu et al.,
Zhu et al. 5

Figure 2. (a) FE meshing, (b) temperature field distribution, and (c)–(e) Von Mises equivalent stress nephograms of
an HPT disc under cyclic load levels 1–3.

2016). According to Zhu et al. (2016), one of the commonly used form for mean stress correction is
the Walker equivalent stress amplitude (Walker, 1970)

1 
ar ¼ max a ð3Þ

where  is the walker exponent. When  ¼ 0:5, equation (3) reduces to the Smith–Watson–Topper
(SWT) equivalent stress amplitude (Smith et al., 1970) as
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ar ¼ max a ð4Þ

Similarly, the Morrow equivalent stress amplitude (Socie and Morrow, 1980) can be obtained by

a
ar ¼ ð5Þ
1  m =f0

where f0 is the fatigue strength coefficient.

For GH4169, fitted results of Morrow, Walker, and SWT equivalent stress amplitude ar by using
equations (2) to (5) are shown in Figure 3, respectively.
6 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

(a) (b)
-6
4.0x10 -6
4.0x10
A = 8.99E-68 A = 2.92E-87
B = 21.28572 B = 28.58007
-6 2
3.0x10 R = 0.96843 2
R = 0.95481
-6
3.0x10
Experiments Experiments
Fitted Fitted
-6
2.0x10
-6
εm

2.0x10

εm
-6
1.0x10
-6
1.0x10

0.0

0.0

-6
-1.0x10
600 620 640 660 680 700 720 600 620 640 660 680 700

σar / MPa σar / MPa

(c)
-6
4.0x10
A = 6.07E-68
B = 21.62538
2
-6 R = 0.96616
3.0x10
Experiments
Fitted
-6
2.0x10
εm

-6
1.0x10

0.0

600 620 640 660 680 700 720

σar / MPa

Figure 3. Relationship between "_m and ar by using (a) Morrow, (b) Walker, and (c) SWT models.

As it can be seen from Figure 3, both the Morrow and SWT models yields more satisfactory
correlations for "_m from ar than the Walker model. Thus, the mean ratcheting strain rate of the
HPT disc under different cyclic load levels can be reasonably represented by a power law relation-
ship in equation (2). Combining with FEA results and the DE model in equation (1), fatigue life of
the HPT disc can then be calculated. When using equation (2)  equation (5), material parameters
of GH4169 are fitted and listed in Table 2.
Based on the FEA results of the HPT disc in Table 1 and material properties of GH4169 in
Table 2, the mean ratcheting strain rate of the HPT disc under different flight missions can be
calculated by equation (2) and the Morrow model in equation (5). Thus, using the DE model in
equation (1), fatigue life of the HPT disc under different flight missions can be obtained as shown in
Table 3.

Numerical procedure for probabilistic fatigue assessment

In the gas turbine engine industry, the turbine discs subjected to LCF are often designed by intro-
ducing a probabilistic concept to consider the scatter of material properties (such as static strength)
and loads (such as permanent/variable loads) according to the target failure probability Pf . In this
analysis, through considering the material properties and loads of the HPT disc as random inputs,
Zhu et al. 7
Table 2. Material properties of GH4169.

C a   0f =MPa A B

0.006363 0.56305 0.58 1581 8.99e-68 21.2857

Table 3. Predicted fatigue life of the HPT disc.

Cyclic load levels Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Fatigue life/cycles 1.8993Eþ4 1.23731Eþ6 1.13Eþ18

HPT: high pressure turbine.

a numerical procedure for its probabilistic fatigue life prediction and reliability assessment is estab-
lished by combining FE simulations as shown in Figure 4.

P  S  N curves. In LCF analysis, due to variations on material properties, heat treatments, surface
conditions, and other random factors, fatigue life of engine components usually show a nature of
random (Fernández-Canteli et al., 2014; De Jesus et al., 2010; Gallegos Mayorga et al., 2017; Muniz-
Calvente et al., 2017; Sanches et al., 2015). From the viewpoint of fatigue design, the first step in safe-life
design and assessment is to quantify the scatter of material properties. In order to consider these random
factors, the P  S  N curves are introduced, which are referred from S  N curves with certain prob-
abilities of failure, and can be drawn under different cyclic stress levels (Wang et al., 2017). A linear
relationship of S  N in a logarithm form can be expressed as

logN ¼ A0 þ B 0 ðlogSÞ ð6Þ

In practice, engine components are subjected to variable amplitude loadings with mean stresses.
For such cases, with the load spectrum obtained with nonzero mean stresses, the equivalent stress
amplitude of S can be calculated by using equation (5) for mean stress correction. In general, the
logarithm of fatigue lives is viewed as normally distributed, that is, fatigue life follows a log-normal
distribution with a constant variance (Beretta et al., 2016) or a changing variance (Hu et al., 2016;
Zhu et al., 2015). Accordingly, logN is treated as a random variable in fatigue design, while its mean
value logN can be described by using equation (6).
In order to draw a probabilistic S  N curve, a commonly used method can be referred to ASTM
E739 Standard (ASTM E739, 2015): (1) Divide the same batch of specimens into several groups for
testing under different cyclic stress levels; (2) the number of fatigue test specimens should meet a
certain confidence band for fitting the fatigue life distribution. GH4169 alloy in this analysis was
tested under multiple stress levels, however, the number of test specimens for each group is insuf-
ficient. Therefore, a new method for calculating the standard deviation of logN, referred as logN , is
needed for probabilistic fatigue assessment. In principle, the value of logN differs from different load
levels, a simple way to estimate its value is introduced in this analysis, namely, the logN can be
approximately considered as a constant. According to this, the standard deviation of difference
between the logarithms of tested fatigue lives and logN is regarded as logN in this analysis, and
logN ¼ 0:44.
8 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

Figure 4. Numerical procedure for probabilistic fatigue assessment of turbine discs.

Using the above-mentioned method, probabilistic S  N curves of GH4169 at 649 C can be

obtained as shown in Figure 5. In particular, the von Mises stress of the HPT disc under 0-maximum
continue-0 load level is 0.9–1.1 times of FE simulation results, a total of 20 data points were
extracted, and the fatigue life corresponding to each stress level is calculated by using equation
(1). Thus, combining with FE simulations, fatigue lives and logN , probabilistic S  N curve of the
HPT disc under different flight missions can be obtained according to ASTM E739 Standard
(ASTM E739, 2015) as shown in Figure 6, in which fatigue life of the HPT disc under the cruise-
maximum continue-cruise load level tends to be infinity and thus is ignored in this analysis.

Probabilistic fatigue assessment under random loadings

As aforementioned, not only the variations in material properties might lead the dispersion in the
HPT disc life, but also the variations result from rotational speeds, structural geometries and tem-
peratures have shown a significant influence on the stress–strain/life response of the HPT disc. For a
mechanical structure/component, it often has a complicated relationship between the fatigue life and
these random factors, namely, it is difficult to derive the statistical property of fatigue life
Zhu et al. 9
1200

GH4169 at 649°C
1100
Experiments
Median S-N
1000

900
σar / MPa

800

Pf = 99%
700

600

Pf = 1%
500

400
2 3 4 5 6
10 10 10 10 10
Tested life Nft / cycle

Figure 5. Probabilistic S  N curves of GH4169 alloy at 649 C.

analytically, and even to assess its reliability directly (Castillo and Fernandez-Canteli, 2009).
Accordingly, numerical simulation method is often introduced to derive the statistical properties
based on FE analysis, while the precision can be guaranteed by a large number of simulation
samplings (Liu et al., 2005). Through FE simulations, distributions of stress–strain response at
the most dangerous region of the HPT disc can be obtained, which usually follow the Gaussian
distribution (Liu et al., 2005).
For the HPT disc in this analysis, the random load x, like the rotor rotational speed, is regarded
as a continuous random variable, which follows a normal distribution with its mean value 
calculated from FE simulations by using ANSYS 14.5 platform, while the degree of load dispersion
can be characterized by different coefficient of variations (CV, ratio of standard deviation to the
mean value), the probability density function (PDF) of the random load x is
2
1 ðxÞ
fðxÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2x2 ð7Þ
2x

where x is the standard deviation of the maximum von Mises stress of the HPT disc. Then, fatigue
life predicted by the DE model in equation (1) under the cyclic load level x can be calculated by
h   0 i1
x 1=n
2 2K 0
Nx ¼ C  h  iB  ð8Þ
x x
A 2 = 1  2 0
f
10 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

(a) 1200

R = 50%
R = 99%
1000 R = 95%
R = 90%
R = 1%
σar / MPa

800

600

400
2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10
Turbine disc life Nft / cycle

(b) 1000

R = 50%
R = 99%
R = 95%
800
R = 90%
R = 1%
σar / MPa

600

400

4 5 6
10 10 10
Turbine disc life Nft / cycle

Figure 6. Probabilistic S  N curves of the HPT disc under (a) 0-maximum continue-0 and (b) idle-maximum
continue-idle.
Zhu et al. 11
where Nx is the number of cycles to failure under the stress level x; K0 is the cyclic strength coef-
ficient; n0 is the cyclic strain hardening exponent.
Assuming that the HPT disc suffers the cyclic load x for N loading cycles, the cycles of each cyclic
stress level ‘‘0–x–0’’ are Nf ðxÞ, according to the Miner’s rule, the cumulative fatigue damage caused
by a certain stress level to the HPT disc can be calculated by

Nf ðxÞ
D¼ ð9Þ
Nx

and the total fatigue damage for N loading cycles is

Z 1
Nf ðxÞ
DN ¼ dx ð10Þ
0 Nx

When the cumulative fatigue damage of the HPT disc reaches the critical value, simply define it as
1 in this analysis, fatigue failure occurs, and fatigue life Nf can be estimated by

1
Nf ¼ N ð11Þ
DN

From a safety critical design prospective, the probability of failure at the designed life of the HPT
disc is investigated in this analysis. For example, what is the probability of failure after 1500 working
hours of the HPT disc? Each part in the population will have a fatigue strength or resistance
described by the distribution S at which the material can resist for N loading cycles. Similarly,
each part in the population will have a load distribution described by S. Then, the probability of
failure Pf can be calculated by using the stress–strength interference


Pf ¼ PrðS 4 SÞ ð12Þ

The purpose of this probabilistic assessment is to verify the design robustness against the vari-
ability of strength (such as fatigue resistance in this analysis), and the scatter of loads (such as
rotational speed in this analysis). Assuming that the HPT disc strength follows a lognormal distri-
bution, which can be obtained from Figure 6, and the distribution of random loads can be regarded
as a normal distribution. Considering that the failure of HPT disc can be approximately treated as a
serial reliability model consisted of all cyclic load levels, failure probability of the HPT disc after
1500 working hours can be calculated by using equation (12) as

8
< Pf ¼ 1  R
>
Qj Q
j ð13Þ
>
: R ¼ Ri ¼ ð1  Pi Þ
1 1

where j is the total number of cyclic load levels, Pi denotes the failure probability under cyclic load
level i ði ¼ 1, 2, 3Þ, and Ri represents its reliability.
12 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

Table 4. Probabilistic fatigue life of the HPT disc.

Cyclic load levels Probability of survival R 50% 90% 95% 99%

Level 1 Loading cycles 1280 1280 1280 1280

Model predicted life by equation (1) 18,993 5182 3588 1800
Cumulative fatigue damage D1 0.06739 0.24701 0.35674 0.71111
Level 2 Loading cycles 1945 1945 1945 1945
Model predicted life by equation (1) 12,37309 337,597 233,710 117,230
Cumulative fatigue damage D2 0.00157 0.00576 0.00832 0.01659
Leve1 3 Loading cycles 23300 23300 23300 23300
Model predicted life by equation (1) þ1 þ1 þ1 þ1
Cumulative fatigue damage D3 0 0 0 0
D750h 0.06897 0.25277 0.36507 0.72770
Service life (h) 10,875 2967 2054 1031
HPT: high pressure turbine.

Model application to an HPT disc

It is worth mentioning that predicted fatigue lives in Table 3 are model predictions under 50%
probability of survival. By using the proposed procedure in Proposed procedure for probabilistic
fatigue assessmentsection, probabilistic fatigue life and reliability of an HPT disc considering uncer-
tainties resulting from both material performance and load variations can be obtained for different
flight missions. In Figure 6, fatigue life of the HPT disc under different survival rates can be
calculated. Life prediction results in Table 3 have shown that fatigue life of the HPT disc under
cyclic load level 3 is infinity, which means that no or extreme small fatigue damage is caused by the
cyclic load level 3. Considering the uncertainty of material performance, probabilistic fatigue life of
the HPT disc is given in Table 4.
As aforementioned, the rotational speeds and material properties are the two major random
factors that affect the stress–strain response and fatigue life of the HPT disc. Considering the
uncertainties resulting from both material properties and load variations, probabilistic fatigue life
of the HPT disc can be obtained as shown in Table 5.
From Table 5, it should be pointed out that the random load dispersion has shown a sig-
nificant effect on the HPT disc life. In addition, the service life of the HPT disc decreases with
the increasing of CV. By fitting the reliability data in Table 5, a relationship between the service life
H of the HPT disc and the dispersion of random loads in the form of CV is derived based on
experimental data

H ¼ H0 þ aðCVÞb ð14Þ

where H is the service life of the HPT disc under random loadings (CV 6¼ 0); H0 is the service life of
the HPT disc under constant loadings (CV ¼ 0); a and b are material constants fitted from the data
in Table 5.
It is worth noting that the term aðCVÞb characterizes the reduction of the HPT disc life because of
the additional damage caused by the random loadings. The relationship between service life of the
HPT disc and its dispersion under random loadings are plotted in Figure 7.
Zhu et al. 13
Table 5. Probabilistic service life H (cycles) of the HPT disc under random loadings.

CV R ¼ 50% R ¼ 90% R ¼ 95% R ¼ 99%

0 10,875 2967 2054 1031

0.005 10,802 2953 2040 1024
0.01 10,581 2907 2011 1008
0.015 10,223 2808 1943 974
0.02 9745 2676 1852 928
0.025 9166 2515 1741 873
0.03 8509 2333 1615 810
0.035 7798 2136 1478 741
0.04 7058 1930 1336 670
0.045 6310 1723 1193 598
0.05 5575 1519 1051 527
HPT: high pressure turbine.

(a) (b)
11000 3000
R = 50% R = 90%
2800
10000
2600
Life / cycles

Life / cycles

9000
2400

8000 2200

2000
7000
1800

6000
1600

5000 1400
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
CV CV
(c) (d)
2200 1100

R = 95% R = 99%
2000 1000

1800 900
Life / cycles

Life / cycles

1600 800

1400 700

1200 600

1000 500

0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
CV CV

Figure 7. Probabilistic fatigue life of the HPT disc under random loadings.
14 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

Table 6. Failure probability and reliability of the HPT disc under random loadings.

CV P1 P2 P3 Pf R

0.02 0.01278 3.06E-09 0 0.01278 0.98722

0.03 0.01558 1.01E-08 0 0.01558 0.98442
0.04 0.01980 4.14E-08 0 0.01980 0.98020
0.05 0.02562 1.80E-07 0 0.02562 0.97438
0.06 0.03316 7.56E-07 0 0.03316 0.96684
0.07 0.04243 2.89E-06 0 0.04243 0.95757
0.08 0.05330 9.81E-06 0 0.05331 0.94669
0.09 0.06554 2.93E-05 0 0.06556 0.93443
0.1 0.07887 7.72E-05 0 0.07893 0.92106
HPT: high pressure turbine.

1.0 1.0

1500h
0.8 0.8
P1
Failure probability Pf

P2
Pf

Reliability R
0.6 0.6
R

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10

CV

Figure 8. Failure probability and reliability of the HPT disc under random loadings.

Then failure probability and reliability of the HPT disc after 1500 working hours can be obtained
by using equations (12) and (13), the results are listed in Table 6 and curves in Figure 8.
With the increase of life dispersion under random loadings, failure probability of the HPT disc
increases. Note that the relationship between the reliability of the HPT disc and the CV of random
loadings is subject to a power law function.
As is well known, the PDF of a normal distribution relates not only to its standard deviation, but
also to its mean value. Traditional researches on fatigue under random loadings mainly considered
the CV to characterize the cyclic load variation. However, during FE analysis of the HPT disc, the
Zhu et al. 15

1.00

0.98

0.96

0.94
R
0.92

0.90

0.88

0.86

0.84
0.00
0.02
0.04
CV

0.06 700
690
0.08 680
670
660 e
valu
Mean
0.10 650

Figure 9. Reliability of the HPT disc considering cyclic load variations.

mean value of random loads mainly varies from the difference in practical usages and the size of
structural simulation samplings. In this regard, considering the uncertainty of mean and CV of cyclic
loads of the HPT disc, the maximum von Mises stress under each cyclic load level is modified to the
Morrow equivalent stress amplitude by using equation (5). Combining with the P–S–N curve of the
HPT disc under different flight missions, its reliability after 1500 h can be obtained as shown in
Figure 9, in which the ‘‘Mean value’’ denotes the mean value of equivalent stress. Note from
Figure 9 that reliability of the HPT disc decreases with the increase of mean and CV of cyclic
loads of the HPT disc.
As one of fatigue critical and heavy duty parts of an aeroengine, HPT disc is generally designed
 approach. For the design under a given failure probability, note from
according to the safe-life (N)
Zhu et al. (2012) and Beretta et al. (2016) that the definition of design curves should not only
consider the component life variability but also the scatter of its applied loads. According to the
Eurocode 3 (ISO EN 1993, 2005), a concept of safety factor (SF) is introduced for LCF design and/
or assessment. Specifically, if the characteristic value for structural resistance is set at 1% percentile,
then the SF can be defined by

log"R  2:326log"R
SF ¼ ð15Þ
log"

where "R is the cyclic deformation at which the material/component can resist for N loading cycles, "
is the mean value of random loads expressed in a form of strain.
16 International Journal of Damage Mechanics 0(0)

900
CV=0.05
CV=0.1
800 CV=0.15

σar / MPa
700 R=50%

600 Pf=0.1%
SF=1.1
SF=1.2
500
SF=1.3
SF=1.4
400 SF=1.5

300
3 4
10 10
Turbine disc life Nft/cycle

Figure 10. Calculation of safety factor for the HPT disc.

Similarly, a SF that can be used for S  N curves with different CVs of the applied loads can be
expressed as

10logSR 2:326logSR
SF ¼ ð16Þ
s

where SR is the cyclic stress at which the material/component can resist for N loading cycles, s is the
mean value of random loads expressed in a form of stress.
Using equation (16) and the procedure proposed in Proposed procedure for probabilistic fatigue
assessment section, design curves under different SFs can be obtained for the HPT disc, in particular,
the SR values can be calculated for several N values, the CV values in this analysis are considered as
0.05–0.1–0.15, respectively. This CV parameter characterizes the uncertainty results from practical
usages, like load variations. A relationship between the SF and the load variation CV can be derived
as shown in Figure 10, where the s values are plotted onto S  N curves diagram with different SF
curves. Using the design curves in Figure 10, an appropriate SF can be clearly determined according
to the load variation CV to ensure that the HPT disc has sufficient reliability, which provides a
reference for safe-life design concept.

Conclusion
In this paper, a probabilistic procedure for fatigue life prediction and reliability assessment of a HPT
disc is established by using FE simulation to consider the effect of load variations. The conclusions
can be drawn as follows.

(1) FE analysis of the groove and bolt hole in an HPT disc is carried out to obtain the stress–strain
response under different flight missions. Fatigue life of the HPT disc is evaluated by using the
DE model to consider the effect of mean stress in an LCF regime.
Zhu et al. 17
(2) The P–S–N curve of the HPT disc under typical operating conditions is drawn against the P–S–
N curve of GH4169, a probabilistic fatigue damage accumulation method under random load-
ings is proposed by fitting P–S–N curves according to the ASTM E739 standard, and then its
probabilistic fatigue life is estimated. Moreover, the influence of random load dispersions on the
HPT disc life is explored and quantified.
(3) Based on the P–S–N curve of the HPT disc under typical flight missions and stress–strength
interference, fatigue reliability analysis of the HPT disc has been carried out. The influence of
random loadings on the reliability of the HPT disc is also investigated and quantified.
(4) The probabilistic procedure proposed in this work enables one to account for the effect of load
variations in fatigue life prediction and reliability assessment of a component, which greatly
increases the benefit of these methods to extend reliable assessment in structural safety enhance-
ment. However, fatigue reliability analysis considering variations from material properties and
structural geometries still need to be further studied for engine components.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article: The financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the
contract No. 11672070 and 11302044, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project under the
contract No. 2015M582549 and 2017T100697, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
under the contract No. ZYGX2016J208 and the Open Project Program of Key Laboratory of Deep Earth
Science and Engineering (Sichuan University), Ministry of Education under the contract No. DUSE201701 are
acknowledged.

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Appendix
Notation

A, B material constants
C,  material constants
CV coefficient of variation
D cumulative fatigue damage
DE ductility exhaustion
FEA finite element analysis
HPT high pressure turbine
K0 cyclic strength coefficient
LCF low cycle fatigue
n0 cyclic strain hardening exponent
Nf number of cycles to failure
PDF probability density function
Pf probability of failure
R reliability
RS response surface
S stress resistance at N cycles
SF safety factor
SWT Smith–Watson–Topper
x random load
 Walker exponent
"in inelastic strain range
"_m mean ratcheting strain rate
a stress amplitude
ar equivalent stress amplitude
f0 fatigue strength coefficient
m mean stress
max maximum stress
x standard deviation of x