Three dimensional turbine blade analysis in thermo-viscoplasticity

Unified elasto-viscoplastic constitutive equation models have been implemented in a general purpose finite element code used in an industrial context for the stressing of structures submitted to high cyclic loading levels. Continuum damage model is used for the lifetime prediction of structures. This paper illustrates the use of these models on a three dimensional turbine blade analysis regarding to the calculations of stress redistributions during the loading cycles and the lifetime prediction. The three dimensional solution is compared to the solution found with the classical uniaxial plane cross-section assumption.