CAE Associates Case Study

Advanced Crack Growth Analyses of Heat Exchanger Components

A major manufacturer of heat exchanger

components for airframe and high-temperature jet
engine applications contacted CAE Associates when
they needed advanced crack growth analyses to
certify their products to meet military requirements.
A new application design and prototype
construction was moving forward rapidly. Without
the certifying analysis to meet customer
specifications, the project schedule would be
extensively delayed.

As a mission critical component on military aircraft, the heat exchanger had to be shown by
analysis to be damage tolerant per strict military specification. Damage tolerance analysis
confirms that peak operating stresses will be low enough such that the largest flaw size that can
escape detection by inspection techniques will not be catastrophic. The analysis must
demonstrate that various flaw types will not propagate at all, or slowly enough such that the
calculated life will exceed a specified service life or inspection interval.

The client was familiar with performing finite element analysis on their components, but had
limited experience with crack growth analysis. In addition, the timing of a critical design review
made a fast solution imperative. CAE Associates was
engaged to help, based on their extensive
experience with both finite element stress analysis
and fracture mechanics methods.

CAE Associates worked with the customer's existing

CAD geometry and performed static structural finite
element analysis to predict detailed stresses and
material response based on the prescribed loading
requirements. After determining the critical regions
of the parts, CAE performed crack growth
calculations based on assumed initial flaws. These
procedures include linear elastic fracture mechanics
via NASA's crack growth prediction tool, NASGRO.

With CAE Associates’ ANSYS customization and analysis process automation experience, a
concise, fast method of determining critical bending and in-plane stresses within the part was
implemented.
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This saved the client both time and money by automating the stress spectrum input process for
critical crack growth calculations.

The final results were delivered on-time to meet the critical design review date, and to allow
production to continue on schedule.

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