Thermal barrier coatings via directed vapor deposition
Abstract
A thermal barrier coating (TBC) "system" is used to thermally protect turbine engine blades and vanes from the hot gases in gas turbine engines. TBC systems are multilayer coatings composed of a porous, insulating yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) top layer which provides thermal protection, a thermally grown alumina oxide (TGO) layer which provides oxidation and hot corrosion protection and an underlying aluminide (nickel or platinum) bond layer which is used to form the TGO layer. Here, an electron beam-directed vapor deposition (DVD) approach is explored as a method for producing the YSZ top layer of TBC systems. Using this approach, an experimental investigation of the effect of process conditions on the coating morphology was undertaken. The coating morphology was effected by the substrate temperature, the evaporation/deposition rate, the chamber pressure and the carrier gas jet speed and density. In order to link the process parameters to more fundamental growth parameters vapor transport in the DVD process chamber was modeled using a Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) approach and the coating assembly was simulated using Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC). The result of this experimental and simulation based study was the determination that three requirements had to be met to form porous, columnar coatings using DVD: the presence of pore nucleation sites in the form of asperities on the substrate surface, a significant amount of oblique vapor species arrivals onto the substrate resulting in flux shadowing at the asperities and a vapor species surface mobility which is low enough to limit surface diffusion on the substrate during growth. By controlling the angle of incidence distribution and the vapor species surface mobility using changes in the carrier gas properties and the chamber pressure, the nucleation characteristics of the intercolumnar pores could be altered. Using such approaches, along with substrate manipulation, an effort was made to tailor the thermal conductivity of the columnar YSZ coatings. To do this, the substrate was inclined with respect to the jet axis to manipulate the intercolumnar pore orientation. This is approximately half the conductivity of conventionally grown materials where the intercolumnar pores are approximately perpendicular to the coating surface. Thus this approach resulted in a coating with greatly improved thermal protection capabilities while still retaining the high in-plane compliance of a columnar morphology. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- 2001
- Bibcode:
- 2001PhDT........97H