Determination of solid particle erosion wear behaviour of aircraft turbine blades specific to additive manufacturing orientation effects

In many areas of the industry, especially in the aviation sector, mechanical components have to work under harsh environmental conditions. In addition to being exposed to extreme environmental conditions due to the environment in which they operate, the basic components of aircraft have to take into account many engineering details such as high strength expectations, speed and impact problems under the influence of hard particles. In addition, the geometries of parts in aircraft can be quite complex and detailed shapes. For this reason, it makes sense to utilize different manufacturing processes to create the final shapes of the components. In this study, a research was carried out to determine the solid particle erosion wear behaviour of In718 test specimens representing the material properties of jet engine turbine blades in aircraft by alternative manufacturing methods and to interpret the results obtained by performing experiments. In718 alloys with horizontal (0°), vertical (90°) and angular (45°) orientation were produced by selective laser melting, a layered powder-based additive manufacturing method, and test specimens were produced by casting, a conventional method. These specimens were subjected to solid particle erosion tests using three different sizes (500 g, 1000 g and 1500 g) of Al2O3 abrasive particles at 30° impact angle. Surface topography and macroscope images were used to interpret the results of the surface differences obtained at the end of the experiments. Consequently, the layer orientation in additive manufacturing and the additive manufacturing method were compared with parts produced by a conventional method in terms of erosion rate. In addition, it was concluded whether the surface damage that occurs in erosive wear depending on the impact angle has a ductile, semi-ductile or brittle character.