Contact separation and failure analysis of a rotating thermo-elastoplastic shrink-fit assembly

Gas turbine propulsion and aircraft engines involve a great number of rotating shrink-fit assemblies. In presence of high-speed rotations and thermal effects, the reliability of such components with respect to contact separation and failure occurrences needs to be analyzed in the very early design of those structures. In particular, engineers and designers are to prescribe an adequate shrink interference to ensure a structural safe life for a given range of operating conditions. This paper is devoted to the determination of those critical contact and plastic states. To that end, a thermo-elastic-plastic analytical model of a rotating shrink-fit assembly is studied. The stress distributions and contact/plasticity/failure conditions are then derived analytically. In the last part, the determination of the safe operating domain and optimum shrink interference is illustrated through a numerical example. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.