High-temperature application of titanium alloys in gas turbines. Material life cycle opportunities and threats – an industrial perspective

Abstract

The gas turbine has truly remarkable scope with respect to the range of stress, temperature and environmental conditions it can generate. As such, material limitations are seldom derived from a single or simple property and this resulting complexity makes business case decisions on new material development non-trivial. This is particularly true for ‘step change’ materials where a robust manufacturing supply chain/process route may not exist and the ability to utilise experience to bound validation and certification needs may be limited. This paper aims to highlight key issues associated with the limitations of existing materials and the nature of material selection to enable component weight reduction and /or temperature increase. Gamma titanium aluminides will be used as a worked example to elucidate the subtle and sometimes non-intuitive nature of new material introduction.