Premature cracking and fatigue in aircraft engine components

Aircraft engine components are susceptible to fatigue damage, which is an inevitable reality due
to performance demands, increasing structural complexity, and aging fleet reassessments.
Designing for continued structural integrity in the presence of damage such as fatigue is an
evolutionary process. On the other hand in addition to aging fatigue, analysis shows there are
cases of premature crack initiation and fatigue in the components, which can be attributed to defects
of various types introduced mostly inadvertently in manufacturing, maintenance and inspection. In
this presentation we will describe one such case study related to deviation in the manufacturing
process causing weld anomaly which resulted in solidification cracking and early fatigue failure
of aircraft engine structural component.