High-Temperature Coatings for Complex Turbine Blades and Vanes

Advanced thermal barrier coating systems are desired for naval gas turbine engines. These coatings will increase the durability of hot-section engine components to significantly improve the time "on-wing", safety and readiness of these engines. Here, we have used a novel coating synthesis technique to enable the deposition of advanced bond coat and top coat compositions and microstructures onto complex engine components. The result is a comprehensive thermal barrier coating system that provides enhanced performance and that can be applied onto a wide range of engine components. During Phase I of this project, DVTI has demonstrated that its novel deposition process can be used to deposit the identified bond coat and top coat with the desired coating compositions and microstructures. This includes top coats having strain-tolerant columnar microstructures and bond coats with dense microstructures. Phase II will lead to the qualification of these coatings for use on several Naval platforms. The successful completion of this project will therefore offer the military a pathway toward production implementation of these advanced coatings and the new deposition processing capabilities required for applying coatings of this type onto engine components.