Advanced Deposition Capability for Oxidation & Corrosion Protection Coatings

NASA's long range goals of reducing fuel consumption by 30% and increasing fuel efficiency by 35% can be partially accomplished through increasing the operation temperatures of gas turbine engines. The advent of advanced alloys, coatings, cooling technologies and ceramic components has created the potential for significant increases in the hot section of these engines; however, these advances will also lead to elevated temperatures in other regions of the engine. For example, the turbine disk section would also need to operate at increasingly higher temperatures that would subject it to oxidation and hot corrosion degradation mechanisms not currently experienced. One approach to enhance the temperature capability of these systems is through the incorporation of environmental protective coatings. Research is proposed here to employ advanced coating manufacturing techniques designed to enable the affordable application of environmental protective coatings having enhanced resistance to hot corrosion and oxidation. Advanced testing approaches will be used that simulate real-world conditions and demonstrate the performance advantages of the deposited coatings. The coating systems will be applied in this work onto coupons and components to demonstrate coating capability and allow simulated engine environment testing in follow-on programs.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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