Contact and fretting wear properties of superalloy Rene® 77

The nickel-based superalloy Rene® 77 is widespread used in turbine blades. The reason is the excellent mechanical properties and resistance to the oxidation at high temperature. In turbine blades, a further resistance to the fretting stresses is needed. This research is focused on the fretting wear characterization of Rene® 77. A point contact test rig was used to study fretting wear and contact parameters at room temperature and 600 C. Results at room temperature shows a non-linear increasing in wear volume at higher number of cycles or higher dissipated energy. At high temperature oxidation prevails at low energy and while wear prevails at high energy.