Experimental and finite element study of void growth in nickel-base single crystal superalloys

Void growth behavior plays an important role in the deformation, damage and rupture of the nickel-base single crystal superalloys at high temperature. A set of creep, fatigue and thermal-mechanical-fatigue (TMF) experiments was carried out. The SEM observation on the fractured surfaces shows that for all experiments studied in this paper the fracture surfaces are made up of small facets. In the center of the facet, there is at least one void. The dimension of the void is dependent on the loading conditions. Crystallographic finite element method was applied to simulate the void growth by a cell model. Creep loading condition and plastic loading condition were modeled. The influence of the crystallographic orientations on the void growth was studied. The finite element study of the void growth can help to understand the experimental results.