Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Failure of aircraft propeller assembly

2003; Elsevier BV; Volume: 11; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.engfailanal.2003.08.002

1873-1961

Hong-Chul Lee, Young‐Ha Hwang, Tae-Gu Kim,

Cavitation Phenomena in Pumps

Abstract This paper analyses the causes of the incident of a Cessna trainer whose propeller was separated due to the cracking of the propeller blade hub during the take off roll. Beach marks and fatigue striations, typical of fatigue cracks, were observed on the fracture surface and corrosive oxides were detected in the center of beach marks that are considered to be the crack origin. The stress acting on the fracture surface under a corrosive environment forms corrosive oxides, such as mud cracks. By analyzing the fractography and metallography of the failed parts, it is found that the propeller blade hub nucleated stress corrosion cracking (SCC) as a result of residual stress and corrosive environment and the SCC was the cause of the fatigue crack. Moreover, a fatigue crack reaches its critical length by repeated cyclic stress, which occurs during the rotation of the propeller blade and then, the rest of the fracture occurred instantaneously.