High cycle fatigue tests at high temperature under superheated steam conditions

Increasing demand for reliable design of all kinds of structures requires materials properties evaluated under the conditions as close to real service conditions as possible. Presently resolved project dealing with development of new turbine blades geometry requires better understanding of the material behavior under service conditions. Service conditions of turbine blades are cyclic loading at high temperatures under superheated steam conditions. There are not commercially available testing systems providing such functionality and the system allowing samples loading under considered conditions is to be proposed. The paper deals with development of the testing equipment and testing procedure for high cycle fatigue tests in superheated steam corrosive environment. The system allowing cyclic loading at temperatures up to 650 degrees C under superheated steam conditions was successfully designed, assembled and tested on series of testing samples.