In the second year of a five-year Department of Energy (DOE) funded program, the Advanced Turbine Technology Applications Project (ATTAP) pushed ceramic automotive gas turbine technology state-of-the-art forward in:
• Ceramic materials assessment and characterization
• Ceramic impact damage assessment
• Ceramic combustor evaluation
• Turbine inlet particle separator development
• Impact-tolerant turbine designs
• Net-shape ceramic component fabrication
Materials characterization progressed from specimens to cut-up components. Impact damage threshold velocities were measured, using graphite projectiles against specimens and full-size rotors. Lean-burn ceramic combustor evaluations included ignition and carbon formation tests with DF-2, JP-4, and ethanol fuels. A third-generation ceramic turbine inlet particle separator demonstrated 97.5-percent effectiveness against rotor-damaging graphite particles. Improved ceramic component design capabilities are providing lower-stress components for incorporation into the critical hot flow path. Component fabrication development focussed on net-shape forming techniques, using Taguchi experiments.
ATTAP is funded by DOE and administered by NASA under Contract DEN3-335.
