High Temperature Solid Lubricant Coatings for Foil Air Bearings

This program seeks to identify and demonstrate improved solid lubricant coatings for use on compliant foil air bearings for gas turbine application. The Phase 1 effort will be to evaluate selected coatings for improved low speed operation, typical of a gas turbine engine, and to investigate a motion limiting snubber system to best protect the bearing and engine during high load conditions. The motion limiting system will also be designed to limit damage to the engine if a bearing should fail for any reason. In Phase II compliant foil bearings with optimized coatings will be demonstrated at actual gas turbine conditions. The motion limiting snubber system will be built and tested. Phase III will test the improved compliant bearings and motion limiting snubber system in an actual gas turbine engine. The results of the program will provide foil bearing improvements for use in advanced gas turbine engines e.g. RATTLR and HiSted gas turbine engines.   BENEFIT: Advanced compliant foil bearings will reduce engine cost, weight, specific fuel consumption and increase flight range. Technology developed in this program will have several military applications, including advanced gas turbine engines, cruise missles, UAV''''''''s, decoys, and small aircraft engines. For commercial application the technology has potential for small general aviation aircraft turbine engines.