Thermal Barrier Coating Life Determination

The goal is to develop and experimentally validate a marketable methodology for remaining life evaluation of thermal barrier coated (TBCed) turbine engine components using quantitative nondestructive inspection (NDI) data. The approach will require innovative research and development (R&D) effort in Phase I to correlate NDI data with failure modes and to develop, validate and implement relevant oxidation, damage and deformation prediction models. Subsequently, these models will be used in defining a systematic development approach that would be implemented in Phase II and beyond. Phase I will directly build upon extensive research already performed by RAI and other organizations under various DoD, DOE and NASA funded programs, and by turbine engine manufacturers. Phase I deliverable will be validated mechanism based (mechanistic) modeling methods to describe TBC deformation and damage behavior under general thermomechanical loads, and thermal and environmental conditions relevant to jet engines.