A topologized resolved shear stress method for the life prediction of nickel-base single crystal superalloys.

• The multiaxial critical-plane damage parameters are adopted for life evaluation. • The stress energy parameters are proved the most effective in this analysis. • A new method considering the interaction of slip systems is proposed. • The proposed method has achieved an improvement of correlation ability. Fifteen multiaxial critical-plane fatigue damage parameters of isotropic metal materials are applied to the life evaluation of nickel-base single crystal superalloys. These parameters are classified into stress-, strain- and strain-energy parameters, and their predictive abilities are evaluated by 12 groups of single crystal fatigue data obtained from mainly an intermediate temperature range (500–760 °C) where the slip deformation is the main damage mode. The results show that the strain energy group exhibits the best fitting characteristics with correlation coefficients. A topologized resolved shear stress method (TRSS) considering the interaction of main slip systems is further proposed. The dispersion degree of resolved shear stress among the main slip systems is quantified by a dispersion factor, and the real driving capacity of resolved shear stress is amended according to the topology of driving force. The obtained results show that the proposed method has achieved an improvement of correlation ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]