Abstract
A trainer military aircraft, equipped with alternative internal combustion engine, experienced an overspeed during preflight
operations. In the aftermath, maintenance personnel performed magnetic particles NDT and found two cracks on the crankshaft.
These were located at the front support of the part and were both about 46 ÷ 48 mm long. The crankshaft is a critical item for
the engine and in order to prevent other similar incidents a technical investigation took place. Therefore, this report shows the
results obtained by fractography, metallographic, chemical analysis and numerical simulation: the root cause of the cracks was the
embrittlement of material due to an excessive hydrogen content. This made possible a fatigue fracture mechanism under normal
operative cyclic loads.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Gruppo Italiano Frattura (IGF).
Keywords: Hydrogen Emprittlement; Fatigue; Fracture; AISI 4340; Internal combustion engine; Crankshaft; FEM; Failure analysis.
1. Introduction
A trainer military aircraft, experienced an engine overspeed during preflight operations. The aircraft was equipped
with a single boxer six cylinder internal combustion engine. In the aftermath, maintenance personnel performed
the operations required by applicable technical publications, among which some NDT inspections of the engine
crankshaft. In particular, magnetic particles and fluorescent liquid penetrant tests found two cracks on the crankshaft
both about 46 ÷ 48 mm long (n. 1 and n. 2 in Fig. 1).
These were located on the main bearing journal, in the section just before the propeller (section 1 in Fig. 2,a).
During the same inspections, a circular dark band, compatible with an overheating phenomenon,was observed on the
crankshaft surface, in the cracks area as well (Fig. 2, b). Since the same engine had experienced a low oil pressure
occurrence some years before, the System Design Responsible (SDR) and, most of all, the Original Equipment Manufacturer
(OEM) attributed the cracks origin to the thermal stress suffered in the occasion by the crankshaft and the
consequent cracks propagation to a normal fatigue phenomenon [1].
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +390691292536 ; fax: +390691292536.
E-mail address: fabrizio.depaolis@aeronautica.difesa.it
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license