Correlation of numerical simulation methods and failure criteria to experimental burst test

Abstract: Predicting the burst speed of turbine rotors is a costly and challenging task. Therefore, the scope of this thesis is to perform a correlation study between numerical simulation methods and failure criteria to experimental over-speed burst test of the Prometheus turbine rotor. The rotor was manufactured using selective laser melting, and GKN Aerospace performed the over speed burst test, which is the foundation of the project. ANSYS Mechanical 19.1 was used to perform structural linear elastic and elastoplastic analysis. Two Hockett Sherby hardening models and linear interpolation of raw hardening data were applied to compute the elasto-plastic analysis. The simulation results were used to calculate several burst margins yielding promising results, with the lowest error margin being approximately 1%. Furthermore, elasto-plastic results proved to be the most accurate for estimating the burst speed, with an error margin of approximately 0.2%. Finally, predicting the location where the fracture is most likely to occur was done by applying the Rice & Tracey criteria, which gave promising results.