Enhanced High-Temperature YSZ-polyester Abradable Honeycomb Seal Structures

• Published in: Journal of thermal spray technology Vol. 31; no. 1-2; pp. 307 - 314
• Main Authors: Pathak, P., Dzhurinskiy, D., Elkin, A., Shornikov, P., Dautov, S., Ivanov, V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 2022
• Subjects: Analytical Chemistry; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Corrosion and Coatings; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials Science; Peer Reviewed; Processes; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thin Films; Tribology; YSZ; APS; honeycomb Seal; finite element analysis; gas Turbines; abradable coating
• ISSN: 1059-9630; 1544-1016
• DOI: 10.1007/s11666-021-01298-5

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 ZrO
2
+ 7.5%Y
2
O
3
+ 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.