Integrating State of the Art Zirconia Thermal Barriers with Ytterbium Silicate Environmental Barriers for Silicon-Based Ceramic Turbine Components

As gas turbine firing temperatures continue to increase for the sake of improved operating efficiency, the material's transition from Ni-based superalloy components toward ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) is concurrently in progress. Due to the complex nature of the turbine operating environment (envisaged ultrahigh temperatures, presence of water vapor, etc.), coating solutions for these CMCs are still on the forefront of design optimizations. Typically, rare-earth (RE) silicate environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) have been utilized to protect the CMCs from impinging water vapor; however, they lack the thermal insulation properties to enable continued use of simple and/or easily accessible bond coat materials (i.e., silicon). Combined thermal-environmental barrier coatings (T-EBCs) are such a multifaceted surface solution. T-EBCs have been considered in the past, but to this point have not been demonstrated to be technologically robust either due to high implementation costs or complex processing. This study utilizes and combines straightforward and well-established processes-such as plasma-sprayed 7 wt.% yttria-stabilized zirconia-to demonstrate the feasibility of MultiLayered T-EBCs comprised of zirconia-based oxides and RE silicate EBCs in a single coating. The results show that despite high thermal mismatch strains, the structures cannot only be deposited, but also in certain circumstances sustain cyclic thermomechanical loading.

Automated summary

As gas turbine firing temperatures continue to increase, the transition of materials from Ni-based superalloy components to CMCs is in progress. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using MultiLayered T-EBCs coatings to address the design challenges for these CMCs.