Enhanced High-Temperature YSZ-polyester Abradable Honeycomb Seal Structures

The abradable coatings had significantly enhanced turbomachinery performance by acting as a sacrificial seal between rotating blades and stationary casing. Further improvement in seal design to meet the higher energy demand and increase the service time has been the key challenge to solve in the gas turbine industry. Honeycomb seals have become the industry standard clearance seal technique due to their unique design and high structural strength with minimum weight. The present study proposes a concept to form a thermal shock resistance structure to achieve higher temperature capability and improve the reliability of high-temperature abradable seal structures for a hot gas path of turbines. A cavity layer of honeycomb seal structure made of SS 321 alloy was coated with advanced high-temperature ZrO2 + 7.5%Y2O3 + 4% polyester seal material using TriplexPro-210 plasma spray system. The integrity of a seal structure was assessed by a cross-sectional analysis and evaluation of the coating microstructure. Additionally, the micro-hardness test was performed to estimate coating fracture toughness, and finite element analysis was used to assess its thermo-mechanical performance. The concept proposed in this study should be further validated to develop the most capable innovative technology for advanced gas turbine abradable seal structures.

Automated summary

This study proposes a concept to improve the temperature capability and reliability of high-temperature abradable seal structures by forming a thermal shock resistance structure. The feasibility of this concept is validated by coating a honeycomb seal structure with high-temperature material and evaluating its microstructure and thermo-mechanical performance.