Compliant Foil Seal for Gas Turbine Engines

Compliant surface non-contacting foil seals (CSFS) with the ability to operate under large rotor excursions, high temperatures and pressure differentials without loss of performance have the potential to make significant improvements in gas turbine engine performance, operability and reliability. However, high-temperature, long-life coatings, improved design analysis and scalable designs are needed to transition this technology to gas turbine engine seal applications. This program will assess the potential for integrating this technology into a General Aviation gas turbine engine, enhance existing analysis, develop preliminary conceptual seal designs, select candidate coating materials for use in component development testing under a Phase II effort, and identify the test equipment needed to fully characterize the combined foil-shaft-coating tribo-material system. Identified test equipment will include both component rigs for tribo-system and component performance assessment as well as a simulator for engine integration and system dynamics evaluations.