Are turbocharger turbine blades made from? I heard that it is some superstrong alloy that can handle the high rotational speeds and stresses with out coming apart. Anyone know?

 

Unubtainium ?

 

From the Holset website:

The turbine wheel is made from a high nickel superalloy investment casting. This method produces accurate turbine blade sections and forms. Larger units are cast individually. For smaller sizes the foundry will cast multiple wheels using a tree configuration.

 

sounds like inconel or something close to it...

 

More like Gatorizable Waspaloy

 

 

Nick, Gatorizable® really is the brand name of a high nickel superalloy called Waspaloy

Click here

Waspaloy here http://www.haynesintl.com/WASPALOYalloy/H3128a1.htm

Waspaloy is commonly used for jet engine turbines and apparently Holset turbos.

 

both are trade names...

Its mostly Iron, with trace amounts of carbon, silicon, chromium, manganese, and sulfur.

 

What type of casting? Investment casting has different techniques and results (grain structure) depending on how the mold is filled and solidified. My employer produces turbine blades. The grain structures I am familliar with are equiax, directionally solidified, and single crystal. Of course it depends on the alloy, but some grain structures have certain properties that are better than others for a specific application. Corrosion resistance may be more important than strength, for example.
This is an interesting topic. Did the Holset website have any more details than "Nickel baed superalloy." Pretty vague in my opinion.

 

....it would be intersting to get a copy of the Phase Diagram for this Topsecretinium material being used.....including cooling/quenching flow data....

I wonder if sintering is being used by someone - more uniform grain boundary control / growth....

 

I don't think there's much Fe in Waspalloy. If I recall, just a few percent iron.. It's mostly Ni.. That stuff is H E A V Y!.
In the late 80's, I worked at a refinery that exploded a 39,000hp single wheel turbine fitted with Waspalloy blades.
Fragments of that wheel were found all over the place... Talk about some dense metal! The blade material was noticeably heavier than the stainless steel fragments from the disk.

K.

 

Ah.. its a nickle, not steel.

 

HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!


How about secretanium?????


Waspalloy, hastalloy, inconel, all suck to machine on, IMO. Welding them though can produce very nice welds.

 

They probably figured that most of the uninformed public looking at Holset's site would probably think Holset was smoking funnyweed if they printed the admittedly funky names given to many of those exotic, proprietary superalloys!
Greek Ascoloy? Gatorizable?

K.

 

I'll have to remember that one.
V