Thermal Barrier Coating Validation Testing for Industrial Gas Turbine Combustion Hardware

2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery Smith ◽  
John Scheibel ◽  
Daniel Classen ◽  
Scott Paschke ◽  
Shane Elbel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Engine Fuel ◽  
Coating System ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Sintering Resistance

As gas turbine (GT) temperatures have increased, thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have become a critically important element in hot section component durability. Ceramic TBCs permit significantly increased gas temperatures, reduced cooling requirements, and improve engine fuel efficiency and reliability. TBCs are in use throughout the GT hot section with turbine blades, vanes, and combustion hardware, now being designed with TBCs or upgraded with TBCs during component refurbishment (Miller, 1987, “Current Status of Thermal Barrier Coatings,” Surf. Coat. Technol., 30(1), pp. 1–11; Clarke et al., 2012, “Thermal-Barrier Coatings for More Efficient Gas-Turbine Engines,” MRS Bull., 37(10), pp. 891–898). While the industry standard 6–9 wt. % yttria stabilized zirconia (7YSZ) has been the preferred ceramic composition for the past 30+ yr, efforts have been underway to develop improved TBCs (Stecura, 1986, “Optimization of the Ni–Cr–Al–Y/ZrO2–Y2O3 Thermal Barrier System,” Adv. Ceram. Mater., 1(1), pp. 68–76; Stecura, 1986, “Optimization of the Ni–Cr–Al–Y/ZrO2–Y2O3 Thermal Barrier System,” NASA Technical Memorandum No. 86905). The principal development goals have been to lower thermal conductivity, increase the sintering resistance, and have a more stable crystalline phase structure allowing to use above 1200 °C (2192 °F) (Levi, 2004, “Emerging Materials and Processes for Thermal Barrier Systems,” Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci., 8(1), pp. 77–91; Clarke, 2003, “Materials Selection Guidelines for Low Thermal Conductivity Thermal Barrier Coatings,” Surf. Coat. Technol., 163–164, pp. 67–74). National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has developed a series of advanced low conductivity, phase stable and sinter resistant TBC coatings utilizing multiple rare earth dopant oxides (Zhu and Miller, 2004, “Low Conductivity and Sintering-Resistant Thermal Barrier Coatings,” U.S. Patent No. 6,812,176 B1). One of the coating systems NASA developed is based on Ytterbia, Gadolinia, and Yttria additions to ZrO2 (YbGd-YSZ). This advanced low conductivity (low k) TBC is designed specifically for combustion hardware applications. In addition to lower thermal conductivity than 7YSZ, it has demonstrated thermal stability and sintering resistance to 1650 °C (3000 °F). The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and cincinnati thermal spray (CTS) have teamed together in a joint program to commercialize the YbGd-YSZ TBC coating system for GT combustion hardware. The program consists of validation of coating properties, establishment of production coating specifications, and demonstration of coating performance through component engine testing of the YbGd-YSZ TBC coating system. Among the critical to quality coating characteristics that have been established are (a) coating microstructure, (b) TBC tensile bond strength, (c) erosion resistance, (d) thermal conductivity and sintering resistance, and (e) thermal cycle performance. This paper will discuss the coating property validation results comparing the YbGd-YSZ TBC to baseline production combustor coatings and the status of coating commercialization efforts currently underway.

Thermal Barrier Coating Validation Testing for Industrial Gas Turbine Combustion Hardware

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Smith ◽  
John Scheibel ◽  
Daniel Classen ◽  
Scott Paschke ◽  
Shane Elbel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Cycle Performance ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Engine Fuel ◽  
Coating System ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Sintering Resistance

As gas turbine (GT) temperatures have increased, thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have become a critically important element in hot section component durability. Ceramic thermal barrier coatings permit significantly increased gas temperatures, reduced cooling requirements, and improve engine fuel efficiency and reliability. TBCs are in use throughout the GT hot section with turbine blades, vanes, and combustion hardware, now being designed with TBCs or upgraded with TBCs during component refurbishment1, 2. While the industry standard 6–9 Wt. % Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (7YSZ) has been the preferred ceramic composition for the past 30+ years, efforts have been underway to develop improved TBCs3, 4. The principal development goals have been to lower thermal conductivity, increase the sintering resistance and have a more stable crystalline phase structure allowing use above 1200° C (2192° F)5, 6. NASA has developed a series of advanced low conductivity, phase stable and sinter resistant TBC coatings utilizing multiple rare earth dopant oxides7. One of the coating systems NASA developed is based on Ytterbia, Gadolinia and Yttria additions to ZrO2 (YbGd-YSZ). This advanced low conductivity (low k) TBC is designed specifically for combustion hardware applications. In addition to lower thermal conductivity than 7YSZ, it has demonstrated thermal stability and sintering resistance to 1650° C (3000° F). The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Cincinnati Thermal Spray (CTS) have teamed together in a joint program to commercialize the YbGd-YSZ TBC coating system for GT combustion hardware. The program consists of validation of coating properties, establishment of production coating specifications and demonstration of coating performance through component engine testing of the YbGd-YSZ TBC coating system. Among the critical to quality coating characteristics that have been established are a) coating microstructure b) TBC tensile bond strength c) erosion resistance d) thermal conductivity and sintering resistance and e) thermal cycle performance. This paper will discuss the coating property validation results comparing the YbGd-YSZ TBC to baseline production combustor coatings and the status of coating commercialization efforts currently underway.

scholarly journals Analysis of the energetic/environmental performances of gas turbine plant: Effect of thermal barrier coatings and mass of cooling air

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ion Ion ◽  
Anibal Portinha ◽  
Jorge Martins ◽  
Vasco Teixeira ◽  
Joaquim Carneiro
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Heat Transfer Analysis ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Cooling Air Flow ◽  
Cooling Air

Zirconia stabilized with 8 wt.% Y2O3 is the most common material to be applied in thermal barrier coatings owing to its excellent properties: low thermal conductivity, high toughness and thermal expansion coefficient as ceramic material. Calculation has been made to evaluate the gains of thermal barrier coatings applied on gas turbine blades. The study considers a top ceramic coating Zirconia stabilized with 8 wt.% Y2O3 on a NiCoCrAlY bond coat and Inconel 738LC as substrate. For different thickness and different cooling air flow rates, a thermodynamic analysis has been performed and pollutants emissions (CO, NOx) have been estimated to analyze the effect of rising the gas inlet temperature. The effect of thickness and thermal conductivity of top coating and the mass flow rate of cooling air have been analyzed. The model for heat transfer analysis gives the temperature reduction through the wall blade for the considered conditions and the results presented in this contribution are restricted to a two considered limits: (1) maximum allowable temperature for top layer (1200?C) and (2) for blade material (1000?C). The model can be used to analyze other materials that support higher temperatures helping in the development of new materials for thermal barrier coatings.

Application of an Industrial Sensor Coating System on a Rolls-Royce Jet Engine for Temperature Detection

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Feist ◽  
P. Y. Sollazzo ◽  
S. Berthier ◽  
B. Charnley ◽  
J. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Temperature Measurements ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Coating System ◽  
Excitation Light ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Jet Engine ◽  
Temperature Detection

Thermal barrier coatings are used to reduce the actual working temperature of the high pressure turbine blade metal surface and hence permit the engine to operate at higher more efficient temperatures. Sensor coatings are an adaptation of existing thermal barrier coatings to enhance their functionality, such that they not only protect engine components from the high temperature gas, but can also measure the material temperature accurately and determine the health of the coating e.g. ageing, erosion and corrosion. The sensing capability is introduced by embedding optically active materials into the thermal barrier coatings and by illuminating these coatings with excitation light phosphorescence can be observed. The phosphorescence carries temperature and structural information about the coating. Accurate temperature measurements in the engine hot section would eliminate some of the conservative margins which currently need to be imposed to permit safe operation. A 50K underestimation at high operating temperatures can lead to significant pre-mature failure of the protective coating and loss of integrity. Knowledge of the exact temperature could enable the adaptation of the most efficient coating strategies using the minimum amount of air. The integration of an on-line temperature detection system would enable the full potential of thermal barrier coatings to be realised due to improved accuracy in temperature measurement and early warning of degradation. This in turn will increase fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. Application: This paper describes the implementation of a sensor coating system on a Rolls-Royce jet engine. The system consists of three components: industrially manufactured robust coatings, advanced remote detection optics and improved control and readout software. The majority of coatings were based on yttria stabilized zirconia doped with Dy (dysprosium) and Eu (europium), although other coatings made of yttrium aluminium garnet were manufactured as well. Coatings were produced on a production line using atmospheric plasma spraying. Parallel tests at Didcot power station revealed survivability of specific coatings in excess of 4,500 effective operating hours. It is deduced that the capability of these coatings is in the range of normal maintenance schedules of industrial gas turbines of 24,000 hours or even longer. An advanced optical system was designed and manufactured permitting easy scanning of coated components and also the detection of phosphorescence on rotating turbine blades (13k RPM) at stand-off distances of up to 400mm. Successful temperature measurements were taken from the nozzle guide vanes (hot), the combustion chamber (noisy) and the rotating turbine blades (moving) and compared with thermocouple and pyrometer installations for validation purposes.

Developments in Processing of Ceramic Top Coats of EB-PVD Thermal Barrier Coatings

2007 ◽  
Vol 333 ◽  
pp. 137-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bilge Saruhan ◽  
Uwe Schulz ◽  
Marion Bartsch
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Morphological Changes ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Young Modulus ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
The Cross

Partially Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (PYSZ) based Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) manufactured by EB-PVD process are a crucial part of a system, which protects the turbine blades situated at the high pressure sector of aero engines and stationary gas turbines under severe service conditions. These materials show a high strain tolerance relying on their unique coating morphology, which is represented by weakly bonded columns. The porosity present in ceramic top coats affects the thermal conductivity by reducing the cross sectional area through which the heat flows. The increase in thermal conductivity after heat-treatment relates to the alteration of the shape of the pores rather than the reduction of their surface-area at the cross section. The studies carried out by the authors demonstrate that the variation of the parameters during the EB-PVD processing of PYSZ based top-coats alters the columnar morphology of the coatings. Consequently, these morphological changes affect primarily the thermal conductivity and eventually the Young’ Modulus which are the key physical properties of this material group. New ceramic compositions covering zirconia coatings stabilized with alternative oxides, pyrochlores and hexaluminates are addressed. Failures occurring in ceramic top coats mark the lifetime of TBC system and therefore, it is necessary that their performance should go beyond that of the-state-of-the-art materials. This context summarizes the research and developments devoted to future generation ceramic top coats of EB-PVD TBCs.

Precision Temperature Detection Using a Phosphorescence Sensor Coating System on a Rolls-Royce Viper Engine

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Feist ◽  
P. Y. Sollazzo ◽  
S. Berthier ◽  
B. Charnley ◽  
J. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Yttrium Aluminium Garnet ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Coating System ◽  
Excitation Light ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Temperature Detection

By adapting existing thermal barrier coatings a sensor coating has been developed to enhance their functionality, such that they not only protect engine components from the high temperature gas, but can now also measure the material temperature accurately and the health of the coating e.g. ageing, erosion and corrosion. The sensing capability is introduced by embedding optically active materials into the thermal barrier coating and by illuminating these coatings with excitation light phosphorescence can be observed. The phosphorescence carries temperature and structural information about the coating. Knowledge of the exact temperature could enable the design of advanced cooling strategies in the most efficient way using a minimum amount of air. The integration of an on-line temperature detection system would enable the full potential of thermal barrier coatings to be realized due to improved accuracy in temperature measurement and early warning of degradation. This in turn will increase fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. Application: The work carried out included the successful implementation of a sensor coating system on a Rolls-Royce Viper engine. The system consists of three components: industrially-manufactured robust coatings, advanced remote detection optics and improved control and readout software. The majority of coatings were based on yttria stabilized zirconia doped with Dy, although other coatings made of yttrium aluminium garnet were manufactured as well. Coatings were produced on a production line using atmospheric plasma spraying. Parallel tests at Didcot power station revealed the durability of specific coatings in excess of 4,500 effective operating hours. It is expected that the capability of these coatings is in the range of normal maintenance schedules of industrial gas turbines of 24,000hrs or even longer. An optical energy transfer system was designed and developed permitting scanning of coated components and also the detection of phosphorescence on rotating turbine blades (13,000 RPM) at probe-to-target distances of up to 400mm. The online measurement system demonstrated precision (around ±5K) comparable to commercial thermocouples and has shown calibration accuracy of ±4K. Transient temperatures were tracked at maximum at 8Hz which is fast enough to follow a typical power generation gas turbine. Repeatable measurements were successfully taken from the nozzle guide vanes (hot), the combustion chamber (noisy) and the rotating turbine blades (moving) and compared with thermocouple and pyrometer installations.

scholarly journals COMPUTATIONAL EVALUATION OF THERMAL BARRIER COATINGS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Irick ◽  
Nima Fathi
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Effective Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
System Response ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Thermally Conductive ◽  
Solution Verification

In the power plant industry, the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) plays a key role in the efficiency of the gas turbine and, therefore, the overall—in most cases combined—thermal power cycle efficiency. Gas turbine efficiency increases by increasing TIT. However, an increase of TIT would increase the turbine component temperature which can be critical (e.g., hot gas attack). Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs)—porous media coatings—can avoid this case and protect the surface of the turbine blade. This combination of TBC and film cooling produces a better cooling performance than conventional cooling processes. The effective thermal conductivity of this composite is highly important in design and other thermal/structural assessments. In this article, the effective thermal conductivity of a simplified model of TBC is evaluated. This work details a numerical study on the steady-state thermal response of two-phase porous media in two dimensions using personal finite element analysis (FEA) code. Specifically, the system response quantity (SRQ) under investigation is the dimensionless effective thermal conductivity of the domain. A thermally conductive matrix domain is modeled with a thermally conductive circular pore arranged in a uniform packing configuration. Both the pore size and the pore thermal conductivity are varied over a range of values to investigate the relative effects on the SRQ. In this investigation, an emphasis is placed on using code and solution verification techniques to evaluate the obtained results. The method of manufactured solutions (MMS) was used to perform code verification for the study, showing the FEA code to be second-order accurate. Solution verification was performed using the grid convergence index (GCI) approach with the global deviation uncertainty estimator on a series of five systematically refined meshes for each porosity and thermal conductivity model configuration. A comparison of the SRQs across all domain configurations is made, including uncertainty derived through the GCI analysis.

scholarly journals Computational Evaluation of Thermal Barrier Coatings: Two-Phase Thermal Transport Analysis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Irick ◽  
Nima Fathi
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Effective Thermal Conductivity ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermal Barrier Coatings ◽  
Thermal Barrier ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Barrier Coatings ◽  
Thermally Conductive ◽  
Solution Verification

Abstract In the power plant industry, the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) plays a key role in the efficiency of the gas turbine and, therefore, the overall — in most cases combined — thermal power cycle efficiency. Gas turbine efficiency increases by increasing TIT. However, an increase of TIT would increase the turbine component temperature which can be critical (e.g., hot gas attack). Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) — porous media coatings — can avoid this case and protect the surface of the turbine blade. This combination of TBC and film cooling produces a better cooling performance than conventional cooling processes. The effective thermal conductivity of this composite is highly important in design and other thermal/structural assessments. In this article, the effective thermal conductivity of a simplified model of TBC is evaluated. This work details a numerical study on the steady-state thermal response of two-phase porous media in two dimensions using personal finite element analysis (FEA) code. Specifically, the system response quantity (SRQ) under investigation is the dimensionless effective thermal conductivity of the domain. A thermally conductive matrix domain is modeled with a thermally conductive circular pore arranged in a uniform packing configuration. Both the pore size and the pore thermal conductivity are varied over a range of values to investigate the relative effects on the SRQ. In this investigation, an emphasis is placed on using code and solution verification techniques to evaluate the obtained results. The method of manufactured solutions (MMS) was used to perform code verification for the study, showing the FEA code to be second-order accurate. Solution verification was performed using the grid convergence index (GCI) approach with the global deviation uncertainty estimator on a series of five systematically refined meshes for each porosity and thermal conductivity model configuration. A comparison of the SRQs across all domain configurations is made, including uncertainty derived through the GCI analysis.

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