Refill Friction Stir Spot Welding (RFSSW) is a technology used for joining solid materials that was developed in Germany in 2002 by GKSS-GmbH as a variant of the conventional friction stir spot welding (FSSW) [1]. In the RFSSW technology, the welding tool consists of a fixed outer part and rotating inner parts, which are called a pin and a sleeve. The tool for RFSSW is designed to plasticize the material of the parts to be joined by means of a rotary movement. The design of the tool allows independent vertical movement of both elements of the welding tool. This allows obtaining spot welds without creating holes that could weaken the structure. The main advantage of RFSSW is the potential for replacing the technologies that add weight to the structure or create discontinuities, such as joining with screws or rivets. Thus, RFSSW has great potential in the automotive, shipbuilding and aviation industries. Furthermore, the technology can be used to join different materials that could not be connected using other joining methods. The main objective of this work is to understand the physical and mechanical aspects of the RFSSW method – including the residual stress state inside the weld and around the joint. The results of the investigations can help to determine optimal parameters that could increase the strength and fatigue performance of the joint and to prove the significant advantage of RFSSW connections over other types of joints. The work assumes the correlation of two mutually complementary investigation methods: numerical analyses and experimental studies carried out with diffraction methods. The comparison between numerical and experimental results makes potentially possible the determination of degree of fatigue degradation of the material by observing the macroscopic stress state and the broadening of the diffraction peak width (FWHM), which is an indicator of the existence of micro-stress related to the dislocation density and grain size.

Despite of nearly 100 years of turbine engine development and design, blade vibrations remain a great engineering challenge. The rotating turbine blades’ vibrations lead to cyclic oscillations, which result in alternating stress and strain in harsh environments of high temperature and pressure. In modern aeroengines, high hot flow velocities might generate erosion and corrosion pitting on the metal surfaces, that leverage remarkably mean stresses. The combination of both mean and alternating stresses can lead to unexpected engine failures, especially under resonance conditions. Then, alternating stress amplitudes can exceed the safety endurance limit, what accelerates the high cyclic fatigue leading quickly to catastrophic failure of the blade. Concerning the existing state-of-the-art and new market demands, this paper revises forced vibrations with respect to excitation mechanisms related to three design levels: (i) a component like the blade design, (ii) turbine stage design consisting of vanes and blades and (iii) a system design of a combustor and turbine. This work reviews the best practices for preventing the crotating turbine and compressor blades from High Cyclic Fatigue in the design process. Finally, an engine commissioning is briefly weighed up all the pros and cons to the experimental validations and needed measuring equipment.

Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) is one of most common mechanisms behind turbine blade failures. The reason is high stress concentration in notch areas, like fir-tree root groves, which can cause cyclic stress beyond the safe threshold. The stress levels strictly depend on the manufacturing accuracy of the fir-tree lock (for both fitted together: blade root and disk groove). The probabilistic study aimed at determination of stress was performed using Finite Element Method (FEM) simulation on a population of 1000 turbine models (disk + blades +friction dampers), where fir-tree lock dimensions were sampled according to the normal distribution, within limits specified in the documentation. The studies were performed for different manufacturing quality levels: 3-Sigma, 6-Sigma and 3-Sigma with tolerance ranges reduced twice. Based on the results, the probabilistic distributions, probabilities and expected ranges of values could be determined for: material plastification, stress, strain, LCF lifetime, etc. The study has shown how each tooth of the root is loaded and how wide a stress range should be expected in each groove. That gives information on how the definition of tolerances should be modified to make the construction more optimal, more robust, with lower likelihood of damage, taking into account the cost-quality balance. It also shows how the Six Sigma philosophy can improve the safety of the construction, its repeatability and predictability. Additionally, the presented numerical study is a few orders of magnitude more cost- and time-effective than experiment.