Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Kutchera, R. E..
Technique joins titanium or one of its alloys to materials, such as iron, nickel or cobalt base material, or to refractory metals. To ensure formation of a satisfactory bond, the temperature, time, environment and pressure must be controlled.
The activated diffusion brazing process was developed for attaching TD-NiCr and U700 finned airfoil shells to matching Rene 80 struts obstructing the finned cooling passageways. Creep forming the finned shells to struts in combination with precise preplacement of brazing alloy resulted in consistently sound joints, free of cooling passageway clogging. Extensive tensile and stress rupture testing of several joint orientation at several temperatures provided a critical assessment of joint integrity of both material combinations. Trial blades of each material combination were fabricated followed by destructive metallographic examination which verified high joint integrity.