The benefits of thermal barrier coatings for protection of combustor walls are well known. However, the trend to higher combustor inlet temperatures and the reduced availability of cooling air leads to a demand for better insulation performance from the thermal barrier coating (TBC). This is of particular benefit for low emission combustors where wall quenching effects need to be minimised and often hot side cooling is not permissible.
A combustor can, for advanced stationary gas turbines, with 1.8 mm thick thermal barrier was designed and tested. The can was compared to a combustor can with a thermal barrier coating sprayed with current state-of-the-art methods, but to the same thickness.
Steps to optimise performance were taken in all development stages. The design allowed easy spray geometries, improved edges and no film cooling. Spraying was optimised in order to achieve a segmented microstructure for reduction of stresses (by decrease of the Young’s Modulus in the coating) and increase compliance of the coating. Testing in component test rigs showed excellent results. The lifetime of the optimised combustor can was beyond test capabilities, whereas the reference combustor failed immediately.
Metallographic and X-ray characterisation before and after component rig testing was performed and revealed features that explain the superiority of the segmented thermal barrier coating.
This work has been funded by the CEC under the contract BRE-CT94-0936.