NASA and Superalloys: A Customer, a Participant, and a Referee

Abstract

NASA has had a long history of research and development in the field of superalloys. These efforts have continued today, where the latest advancements in turbine disk and blade technologies are being developed Although NASA does support military flight systems, it's predominant role is in supporting civilian air transportation systems, and thus has goals for improving fuel efficiency, emissions, noise, and safety of today's aircraft. NASA has traditionally served several distinct but complimentary roles as participants in multi-disciplinary research teams, as customers who fund research and development efforts at industry and universities, and as referees who can address broad issues that affect the entire aeronautics community. Because of our longer range viewpoint, we can take on higher risk, higher reward research topics. NASA can also serve as an intermediary between the basic research performed primarily at universities and the development efforts emphasized by industry. By interacting with individual companies, NASA can identify areas of general interest and problems common to a large portion of the aeronautics community, and devise programs aimed at solving these problems. In space missions, NASA is a direct customer responsible for developing vehicles. In the case of the Space Shuttle, NASA has worked with various contractors to design and build numerous components out of superalloys. Another fascinating area for the use of superalloys is in power systems for long life applications in space. Potential missions include providing electric power for deep space missions, surface rovers, including lunar and Mars, and stationary power generators on the lunar surface.

Dwell Notch Low-cycle Fatigue Performance of Powder Metal Alloy 10

“…New highly reliable life prediction systems are required as metal temperatures increase and dwell effects become dominant [2]. Fatigue and creep interactions have been the traditional failure modes considered active under dwell fatigue conditions [3].…”

Influence of Ruthenium on Topologically Close Packed Phase Precipitation in Single-crystal Ni-based Superalloys: Numerical Experiments and Validation

“…Heckl et al [13] concluded that with addition of 1 at-% Re the maximum application temperature can be increased by 87 K. Even an addition of 1 at-% Ru raises the limit by 38 K in low Re-containing alloys. Nevertheless concerns are rising due to the very high price of both elements, which requires careful optimization of the alloy composition [14].…”