High-Temperature Coatings for 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. In this work, we will use novel coating synthesis techniques that enable the deposition of advanced bond coat and top coat compositions and microstructures to achieve a comprehensive thermal barrier coating system that provides unprecedented thermal protection and substantially extended thermal cycle lifetimes. Low cost, high throughput processing for the entire TBC system is also envisioned. The proposed Phase I effort will identify TBC systems that are anticipated to meet the performance goals at both current and future engine operating temperatures and demonstrate the feasibility of applying entire TBC systems using our advanced processing techniques. The successful completion of the Phase I work will lead to a follow-on Phase II program focused on down-selecting candidate material(s) and applying the new coating onto bars for burner-rig testing and real aircraft components. Success in this objective will 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.