Coatings for the Protection of Turbine Blades From Erosion

Abstract

Many types of turbines, including aircraft gas turbines, steam turbines, and power recovery turbines, suffer from solid particle erosion caused by a variety of materials ingested into the machines. Utilization of various laboratory erosion tests tailored to the specific application by using various erodents, temperatures, velocities, and angles of impact, have been shown to be effective in the development and selection of coatings for the erosion protection of turbine blades and other components. Detonation gun coatings have demonstrated their efficacy in providing substantial protection in many situations. It has now been shown that several tungsten carbide and chromium carbide Super D-Gun™ coatings not only have better erosion resistance than their D-Gun analogs, but cause little or no degradation of the fatigue properties of the blade alloys. Nonetheless, caution should be employed in the application of any laboratory data to a specific situation and additional testing done as warranted by the turbine designer.