International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 80 (2003) 389396

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpvp

An effective continuum damage mechanics model for creep fatigue

life assessment of a steam turbine rotor
Jing JianPinga,*, Meng Guanga, Sun Yib, Xia SongBob
a

The State Key Laboratory of Vibration, Shock & Noise, ShangHai JiaoTong University, ShangHai 200030, China
b
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Received 30 December 2002; revised 8 April 2003; accepted 8 April 2003

Abstract
A nonlinear Continuum Damage Mechanics model is proposed to assess the creep fatigue life of a steam turbine rotor, in which the effects
of complex multiaxial stress and the coupling of fatigue and creep are taken into account. The nonlinear evolution of damage is also
considered. The model is applied to a 600 MW steam turbine under a practical start stop operation. The results are compared with those
from the linear accumulation theory that is dominant in life assessment of steam turbine rotors at present. The comparison show that the
nonlinear continuum damage mechanics model describes the accumulation and development of damage better than the linear accumulation
theory.
q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Creepfatigue; Damage; Steam turbine rotor; Damage mechanics

1. Introduction
The developments of modern industry require the parts
of a steam turbine to operate under greater working loads
and in a higher temperature environment. Much concern has
been paid to fatigue and creep damage behaviour of turbine
materials. Being an important part of the steam turbine,
the rotor is often subject to high temperature and complex
stress. Cracks are likely to initiate. Apart from fatigue,
creep damage also plays an important role in the rotor
damage. Generally, low cycle fatigue wears off seventy
percent of the life of the rotor and creep accounts for the
remaining thirty percent [1]. However, fatigue and creep
always occur with each other. Therefore, coupling of fatigue
and creep must be considered in the life prediction of a
steam turbine rotor.
At present, the Linear Damage Accumulation Theory
(LDA) is widely used in the fatigue creep life assessment of steam turbine parts. As it contains uniaxial
assumptions and the effect of the coupling of fatigue and
creep is ignored and the damage accumulation calculation
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jianpj@163.com; jianpj@sjtu.edu.cn (J. JianPing).
0308-0161/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0308-0161(03)00070-X

is rather crude, the predicted results are usually quite

different from practice. Continuum Damage Mechanics
(CDM) developed in the past decades has not only a
stronger theoretical foundation but also better research
methods than LDA. It has been used successfully in
many engineering fields such as creep, fatigue, ductile
fracture and composite failure [2,3].
In this paper, the transient temperature and stress
fields of a 600 MW steam turbine rotor are investigated.
The nonlinear CDM model is employed to predict the
creep fatigue life of the steam turbine rotor and the
results are compared with those from LDA theory.
Finally, the advantages of the nonlinear CDM model are
discussed.

2. Theoretical model
2.1. Linear Damage Accumulation theory
At present, the LDA theory is mainly used in the
fatigue creep life assessment of steam turbine parts.
The damage accumulation is considered as a linear process.
The fatigue and creep damage are calculated separately and

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Nomenclature

s0f
b
c
Nf
D1P
Nfi
tci
n
sH
sij
V; a1 ; g

fatigue strength coefficient

fatigue strength exponent
fatigue ductility exponent
cycles to failure under fatigue
plastic strain range
cycles to failure under a load si
cycles to failure under a creep load si
Poissons ratio
mean stress
component of stress
temperature dependent material constants under
low cycle fatigue conditions
A; B; l; a2 ; r temperature dependent material constants
under creep conditions
Dc
creep damage
Ds
cyclic stress range
K0
cyclic strength coefficient
1_pp
strain rate of the secondary creep process

superposed linearly. The structure fails, as the damage

amounts to 1. It can be expressed as follows
X ti
n
i 1
1
tci
Nfi
The creep life tc can be obtained from the following
equation


seq B
tc
2
A
where A and B are material constants. The fatigue life Nf is
mainly obtained by the Manson Coffin equation.
D1e
s0
f 2Nf b
2
E
D1p
10f 2Nf c
2

3a

sr
E
10f
tc
D1e
ni
ti
RV
seq
Sij
skk
dij
t
D
Df
D sp
n0
1_p
Dr
Yr

critical stress
Youngs modulus
fatigue ductility coefficient
time to failure under creep
elastic strain range
cycles under a fatigue load si
cycles under a creep load si
triaxial coefficient
effective stress
component of deviatoric stress
component of normal stress
d function
time
total damage
fatigue damage
cyclic stress range at saturation
cyclic strain hardening exponent
strain rate of tertiary creep process
critical damage value
critical release rate of strain energy

rate of the secondary creep process and 1_p is the strain rate
of the tertiary creep process, then
!1=n
1_pp
4
D12
1_p
n is a material constant related to temperature.
The definition of damage from Eq. (4) can be used to
measure creep damage experimentally. Damage may also
be related to the variation in density, resistivity or other
material properties. In a fatigue process, during strain
controlled cycling, if Ds is the cyclic stress range and Dsp
the cyclic stress range at saturation, then the damage may
be defined as [3]
D12

3b

The LDA theory is based on the following assumptions:

(1) In every loading block, the load must be symmetric.
(2) For any stress level, at the beginning or at the end,
each creep process leads to the same damage. (3) Loading
sequence does not affect life prediction.
2.2. Continuum Damage Mechanics theory
For a nominal stress of s; the damage parameter D is
zero for a material containing no cracks and unity when
rupture takes place. Also s=1 2 D; which is the
effective stress, takes into account the weakness of the
material due to the presence of voids or micro-cracks.
From a thermodynamic point of view, D is an internal
variable of an irreversible damage process, if 1_pp is the strain

Ds
D sp

In terms of this, damage can be measured by strain

controlled fatigue tests.
Using Df to represent fatigue damage and Dc for creep
damage, the incremental form of these two kinds of damage
can be written as follows
dDf fF DP; Df ; Dc dN

dDc fc seq ; Dc ; Df dt

Although different defects in a material cannot be

added directly, from the definition of effective stress in
Damage Mechanics, the decrement of effective area
made by different defects can be added. If it is assumed
that
D Df Dc
8

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391

Eqs. (6) and (7) can be written as

dDf fF DP; Df Dc dN fF Dp; DdN

dDc fc seq ; Dc Df dt

10

and then
dD dDf dDc fF DP; DdN fc seq ; Ddt

11

Since both fF and fc are nonlinear, and relate to the variable

D; the nonlinear coupling of fatigue creep is therefore
reflected in Eq. (11). The functions fF and fc based on
thermodynamic principles have been proposed by Lemaitre
[4] who took into account the effects of nonlinear damage
accumulation and multiaxial stress
RV
D1gp 1
dN
Vg 1 1 2 Da1


seq r
RV
dt
dDc
1 2 Da2 l
dDf

12
13

where RV is the triaxial coefficient and is expressed as

!2
2
sH
14
RV 1 n 31 2 2n
3
seq
and

seq

3
2

Sij Sij

1=2

Sij sij 2 sH dij ;

sH

1
3

skk

in which, the mean stress sH is included and the effects of

triaxial load are considered. Many studies demonstrate that
mean stress can have a significant influence on fatigue and
creep life. Reduction of lives can be as large as an order of
magnitude of substantial mean stress. Therefore, in the
above damage models, the effects of multiaxial stress are
considered by including RV ; and this will affect lives
significantly. Under uni-axial load, RV 1:
If Eqs. (12) and (13) are adopted, the incremental
creep fatigue damage Eq. (11) becomes


seq r
RV
D1pg1
RV
dD
dN
dt
Vg 1 1 2 Da1
1 2 Da2 l

15

a1 ; a2 g; r and l are material constants adjusted to fit the

experimental result. They can be obtained by uni-axial stress
controlled creep tests and strain controlled fatigue tests.
Note that in the present continuum damage model,
the damage accumulates nonlinearly and the effects of
multiaxial stress are considered. The effects of the nonlinear
coupling of fatigue and creep are also taken into account.

3. Temperature and stress field analysis

of a 600 MW steam turbine rotor
In the control stage and first compressor stage of the
High-Pressure (HP) rotor of a 600 MW steam turbine,

Fig. 1. Finite element mesh of high pressure rotor of 600 MW steam

turbine.

the temperature of the steam is much higher than other

areas. Large temperature gradients and thermal stress
usually occur. Therefore, the life of a turbine is mainly
dependent on the damage evolution in these stages. In the
present paper, the transient temperature and thermal stress
field under a practical start stop operation are calculated by
the finite element software ADINA. The finite element
model is shown in Fig. 1. The start and stop curves are
shown in Fig. 2 [5].
In the calculations all related parameters are considered
as functions of time and temperature, they are given in
Table 1. The convection coefficients from Westinghouse [6]
are adopted.
Note that using the monotonic stress strain constitutive
relation to analyze the stress and strain of cyclically
softened material would result in an underestimation of
the real damage of the material. Therefore the cyclic
stress strain relation of rotor material 30Cr1Mo1V is
employed in the stress and strain analysis. The cyclic
stress strain relation is written as
0

Ds=2 K 0 D1p =2n

the parameter n0 is the cyclic strain hardening exponent and

K 0 is the cyclic strength coefficient. If N0 is the number of
cycles at which the drop of peak-stresses become sharp,
not slow as before, the cyclic stress strain relation is
selected at N0 =2 cycles. Generally, it is considered that
N0 < Nf [7]. The parameters related to the cyclic property
of 30Cr1Mo1V are given in Table 2. The monotonic and
cyclic stress strain relations at several temperatures for
30Cr1Mo1V are shown in Fig. 3 [7]. Fig. 3 shows that
30Cr1Mo1V is a cyclic softening material. Therefore, it is
dangerous to use the monotonic stress strain relation to
predict the life of a steam turbine. In the analysis,
the centrifugal force of the rotor is also taken into account.
The calculated results reveal that in the start and stop
process, some areas become plastic; the accumulated plastic
strain and the triaxial coefficients of these yield locations are
shown in Table 3. The effective stress fields at peak strain
amplitude under start and stop operations are shown in
Figs. 4 and 5.
As the load of the steam turbine approaches the
maximum rating, the steam temperature also nearly reaches
the rated value. Creep usually comes into function at this

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J. JianPing et al. / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 80 (2003) 389396

Fig. 2. Practical start and stop operation curves.

time. The maximum stress and temperature of the rotor at

the rated load are given in Table 4. The corresponding
temperature field and effective stress field are shown in
Figs. 6 and 7.
Table 1
Parameters at several temperatures

4. Damage and life analysis and model comparison

The traditional creep life prediction equation of
30Cr1Mo1V rotor steel at 525 8C is given by [8]:

tr

Temperature
(8C)

100

200

300

400

500

600

Specific heat
(J/kg 8C)
Dilation
coefficient
(1026/8C)
Heat conduction
W/(m k)

487.4

507.6

565.2

622.8

669.6

716.4

seq
381:6

28:596

16

Table 2
Parameters of the cyclic property of 30Cr1Mo1V at several temperatures

11.49

12.03

12.43

12.80

13.23

13.32

Temperature (8C) s0f =E

38.9

38.1

33.9

33.1

30.1

26.4

25
510
538

10f

n0

k0

0.00541 20.0804 1.823 20.825 749.4 0.0505

0.00466 20.0856 0.5635 20.716 592.7 0.0648
0.00375 20.0697 0.8176 20.755 494.7 0.0458

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393

Fig. 8 shows that although the LDA model Eq. (16)

and the CDM model Eq. (17) are both obtained by one
uniaxial creep test, the above CDM model fits well the test
data, for which the experimental damage parameter D is
defined by Eq. (4). In Fig. 8, the curves show that the
damage evolution from the uniaxial CDM model appears
nonlinearly. This coincides with the real creep damage
evolution process of a rotor material. The linear accumulation law overestimates the creep damage evolution values.
From the low cycle test data of 30Cr1Mo1V rotor steel at
510 8C [7], the Manson Coffin equation and multiaxial
fatigue damage equation can be, respectively, written as
D1p 0:56352Nf 20:716

18

and
D11:3966
dD
RV
p

dN
1:5554 1 2 D6:0881

Fig. 3. Stressstrain relation of 30Cr1Mo1V rotor steel.

Table 3
Strain and triaxial coefficient of yielded points of HP rotor under start and
stop
Dangerous
points

Front foot
of control
stage

Back foot
of control
stage

Sealing
of control
stage

Root of
first stage

Root of
second
stage

Start D1p
Start RV
Stop D1p
Stop RV

0.00048
1.94
0.00051
2.21

0.00164
2.13
0.00172
2.20

0.000156
1.59
0.000279
1.61

0.00063
1.64
0.00079
1.68

0.00014
1.60
0.00018
1.71

In Eq. (16), the units of tr is hour, and the units of seq

is MPa.
In terms of the CDM theory (Section 2) and the test data
from Ref. [8], the multiaxial creep damage equation of
30Cr1Mo1V rotor steel at 525 8C is written from Eq. (13) as


seq 8:569
RV
dDc
dt
17
1 2 D6:02 478:8

19

By using the traditional creep life prediction of Eq. (16)

and the CDM model of Eq. (17), the creep life
predictions of a high-pressure rotor of a 600 MW steam
turbine at the rated load under start stop operation are
calculated. The results are listed in Table 5. It is shown
that the life predictions of LDA model coincide with
those of an uniaxial CDM model, but are quite different
from the results of a multiaxial CDM model. The
inherent weakness of the LDA model in not dealing well
with the multiaxial problem is reflected. The triaxial
coefficient is adopted in the multiaxial CDM model, and
the effects of stress state are considered. It is therefore
expected that the multiaxial CDM model could predict
the life and damage evolution more accurately [9].
In the life predictions of the multiaxial CDM model,
the triaxial coefficient affects the results greatly. In Fig. 9,
the triaxial coefficient fields corresponding to the stress
fields in Fig. 7 are plotted. The results show that the creep
life predictions in turbine rotor design may change greatly if
the effects of multiaxial loading are considered.

Fig. 4. Stress field of high pressure rotor of 600 MW steam turbine under start operation.

Fig. 5. Stress field of high pressure rotor of 600 MW steam turbine under stop operation.

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J. JianPing et al. / International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping 80 (2003) 389396

Table 4
Effective stress, temperature and triaxial coefficients at dangerous points at
rated load
Dangerous points

s (MPa)

T (8C)

RV /

Front root of control stage

Back root of control stage

65.3
70.4

519.3
509.6

1.53
1.64

In Fig. 10 the damage evolution from a multiaxial

CDM model is compared with that from a uniaxial CDM
model. The results show that the multiaxial complex
stress accelerates the damage accumulation greatly.
Therefore, in damage analysis of a steam turbine rotor,
the effects of multiaxial complex stress must be
considered. Similar conclusions have been drawn in
fatigue analysis and the details are given in Ref. [10].
From the combination of Eqs. (17) and (19), the CDM
model of creep fatigue can be written as
RV
dD
1 2 D6:02


seq
478:8

D11:3966
p
dN
1 2 D6:0881

8:569

RV
dt
1:5554
20

The average design life of a steam turbine is usually 30

years. Assume that the frequencies of the start and stop
operations are three times per year, and the stable running
time is 100 days [11] during each start stop process.
Finally, the total damages in 30 years of the back root of the
control stage, which is most dangerous, are calculated by

Fig. 6. Temperature field of high pressure rotor of 600 MW steam turbine at

rated load.

Fig. 8. Damage evolution for creep of 30Cr1Mo1V at 525 8C and s 100

MPa:

applying the LDA theory and the multiaxial CDM model.

The results are shown in Table 6.
In both CDM and LDA theory, the structure fails
when damage amounts to 1, i.e. the critical damage Dr
1: However, tests show that when damage is still at a
low value, cracks have initiated and the structure will
fracture in very much fewer cycles. Therefore, in CDM,
the critical damage is not set to 1. Many tests show that
0:2 # Dr # 0:8: The critical value can be obtained by
uniaxial tests as follow [3]
p
Dr 1 2 sr = 2EYr

21

where sr ; Yr are the critical stress and critical release

rate of strain energy when structure rupture. In this
study, Dr 0:24 is obtained by uniaxial test [7]. Fig. 10
shows that the life of the back root of the control stage
impeller under multiaxial load has nearly been exhausted
when the damage is as low as 0.24. It demonstrates that
because damage evolves nonlinearly, damage can be low
when there is little remanent life. If life-used rate is
written as d D=Dr ; because the difference of the
fracture criteria of CDM and LDA (Dr 0:24 for
CDM in this study and Dr 1 for LDA), although the
estimated damage from the multiaxial CDM model is

Table 5
Creep life at dangerous points (h)

Fig. 7. Stress field of high pressure rotor of 600 MW steam turbine at rated
load.

Dangerous points

LDA theory

Uniaxial
CDM model

Multiaxial
CDM model

Front root
of control stage
Back root
of control stage

3.8441 106

3.8509 106

2.5169 106

2.0407 106

2.0442 106

1.3361 106

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395

Fig. 9. Distribution of triaxial coefficient of 600 MW steam turbine at rated load.

0.0741 shown in Table 6, at this time 30.88% d

0:0741=0:24 of the life has been used. It is obviously
more reasonable than the result from LDA theory of
21.60%. d 0:216=1 It is suggested that although the
LDA theory may overestimate the damage evolution, it is
not always a conservative estimation in life prediction.
This should be important in practical rotor design.
The results from CDM model also show that the damage
under creep fatigue coupling function is not equal to
the damage of creep and fatigue added directly as the LDA
theory does. It shows that the coupling function accelerates
the damage evolution significantly.
The above analyses show that the nonlinear CDM model
cannot only takes into account the effects of
multiaxial complex stress but also the coupling function
of creep and fatigue.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, a nonlinear CDM model is employed to
predict the creep fatigue damage and life of a 600 MW
stream turbine high pressure rotor, and the results are
compared with those from a LDA. The conclusions drawn
from the study can be summarized as follows:

1. Since the LDA used a uniaxial assumption both in creep

and fatigue analysis, the effects of multiaxial complex
stress are ignored. The life is over evaluated.
Multiaxial complex stress makes the life shorter and
accelerates damage accumulation. Therefore, in the
creep fatigue analysis of a steam turbine rotor, the
effects of multiaxial complex stress must be considered
2. The nonlinear coupling function of creep and fatigue
accelerates the damage evolution significantly. It must
be taken into account in the life assessment of steam
turbine rotor.
3. Because damage evolves nonlinearly, damage can be low
when there is little remanent life. It is suggested that
although the LDA theory may overestimate the damage
evolution, it is not always a conservative estimation in life
prediction. This could be important in the life prediction
of steam turbine rotors.

Acknowledgements
The present work is supported by the National High-Tech
Research and Development Fund (No. 2002AA412410).

Fig. 10. Creep damage comparison of uniaxial and multiaxial CDM model.

Table 6
Total damage of back root of control stage in 30 years
Damage theory Fatigue damage Creep damage Creep fatigue damage
LDA theory
CDM Model

0.1102
0.0346

0.1058
0.0230

0.216
0.0741

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