Fan blade out is when a fan blade breaks off in a plane turbine engine while it is running. This puts a lot of stress on the remaining engine components, due to the rotational asymmetry at very high angular velocities. This stress is applied at a very high strain rate, stretching the components in very little time. Engines are currently designed to accommodate stress applied statically, at very low strain rates; however, materials can absorb more energy before fracturing at dynamic, high strain rates. Therefore, engine components are stronger than they need to be and are unnecessarily heavy. The aim of this project is to produce stress-strain curves at high strain rates that can be compared to static curves in the redesigning of lighter engine components. The major objectives of the project include performing static and dynamic tensile tests, at various strain rates, on samples of a low ductility Aluminum alloy. The ADMET Expert 3901 is being used to evaluate the response of Aluminum 3003-H14 and Aluminum 6061-T6 to several different strain rates. It is expected that the higher strain rates will have higher yield strengths, ultimate tensile strengths, and ductility; that is, the alloys will appear tougher at higher strain rates. The mechanical engineering team members will use the data generated for modelling.

Our team collaborated with Mechanical Engineering 44 on this project.