Mechanics Modeling of Blade/Disk Contacts

A predictive procedure capable of calculating dovetail surface contact loads in gas turbine engines is developed. The procedure determines contact normal and tangential loads, for a complete mission involving radial blade and thermal loads. Once Finite Element calculations to determine empirical constants for a specific blade/disk geometry are completed, the predictive procedure handles complicated load histories in near real-time for both single and double tang dovetails. The resulting load histories can be combined with Singular Integral Equations to calculate edge-of-contact stresses. The resulting contact stresses have been used to successfully predict fretting fatigue lives under controlled laboratory conditions.