rotating blades – Presentation at the final COST 538 meeting Claudia Rinaldi* , Erica Vacchieri** 10th MC & Joint WG meeting COST 538 Praga, 7-8 Dicembre 2008 PRESENTAZIONE POWER POINT * CESI RICERCA ** ANSALDO RICERCHE In the frame of the COST ACTION 538 ( Life Extension of High Temperature Components), partners developed tools for the assessment of residual life of gas turbine blades. In the last Workpackage (WP5) the developed tools were applied to some case histories. CESI RICERCA was responsible of the analyses on two scrapped 1 st stage blades purchased by Ansaldo Energia to COST. The two components were jointly examined by metallography and two models were applied to estimate the mean local temperature of the component at different positions: – the CESI RICERCA model based on coating degradation; – the AEN model based on the evolution of gamma prime in the base material. The results of the two methodologies were in good agreement. Moreover the metallographic findings gave a confirmation of the coating degradation level detected by innovative NDT techniques applied to the blades.