Blades under test

Villaroche, France-based SNECMA is using Cedip Infrared Systems' Silver 450M IR camera for the remote non-contact fatigue testing of its engine turbine blades.

SNECMA designs, develops and produces engines for civil and military aircraft, launch vehicles and satellites.

To improve the design of its aero-engines, engineers at SNECMA sought to better understand the behaviour of differently treated engine turbine blades when subjected to extreme vibration testing.
To simulate vibration conditions, engineers mounted a turbine blade on a fixed, rigid support and subjected it to powerful pulsated air blasts considerably in excess of what would be encountered in an aero-engine even in extreme use. Crack propagation was induced by gradually increased the frequency of the intense air blasts to the resonant frequency of the turbine blade.

Using a Silver 450M thermal IR camera, SNECMA engineers were then able to pinpoint the exact stress limit of a range of differently treated turbine blades as the appearance of a crack is proceeded by a localised heating effect.