LABORATORY EVALUATION OF COMPRESSOR BLADES CONSIDERED FOR USE IN CIP/CUP COMPRESSORS

摘要

Four die-casting alloys, the external-pressure-pin and conventional casting methods, an accelerated aging heat treatment, and an airfoil fillet modification were evaluated for 33F-S1 compressor blades considered for use in axial flow compressors installed during the Cascade Improvement and Uprating Programs at the three gaseous diffusion plants. The blades tested were procured by the Portsmouth and Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plants in small quantities (200 of each alloy for each plant) from an experienced die-casting vendor in 1971. Based on castability, resonant frequency, resistance to fatigue cracking, and shank breaking load, the ranking of the four alloys from highest to lowest is GAT2, 214X, X224, and D-15. The GAT2 alloy ranked highest in all categories except impact value;the impact values of both X224 and 214X alloys exceeded that of the GAT2 alloy, thus indicating the latter is relatively more brittle. However, in view of its other excellent properties, including fatigue cracking resistance, GAT2 alloy is worthy of consideration for use in blades for CIP/CUP or Add-on Plant compressors, particularly if castability becomes a problem with the presently used 214X alloy. Use of the external-pressure-pin casting method is not recommended because the resulting casting difficulties cannot be justified by the small increases in shank breaking loads. The airfoil fillet modification, which is a change from the conventional circular fillet to an elliptical fillet, resulted in increases (1.5 to 4.0 percent) in the average resonant frequency and in resistance to fatigue cracking (15 to 100 percent). The results of giving the blades an accelerated aging heat treatment, designed to simulate in excess of 10,000 hours of cascade exposure, showed that overaging had no significant effect on average resonant frequency but that overaging improved blade quality by reducing residual casting stress.