An investigation on high temperature erosion behaviour of plasma sprayed CoCrALY/Al2O3/YSZ on fe and ni based alloys

Abstract

Parts of aircraft and gas turbines used for power production are subjected to severe erosion damage since aircrafts frequently operate in sandy environment. Low cost fuel such as poor quality coal is used in gas turbines which produce suspended hard particle in the exhaust. In the past, researchers have worked on minimising the erosion by using certain coatings. Development of new coatings is necessary in order to explore further in improving resistance against erosion process under high operating temperature of gas turbine, aero engines and other components. In the present work, the investigation of elevated temperature erosion behaviour of CoCrAlY/Al2O3/YSZ coatings synthesised by plasma spraying on two different base metals, namely, Hastelloy X (Superni 76) and AISI 321 (MDN 321) was carried out. The coated samples were subjected to erosion test at 600 C with the impact angles of 30 and 90 under steady state condition. Alumina powder was used as erodent material of uneven angular shape of 50 ?m particle size. The morphology and phase formed on eroded surface are characterised using SEM and X-ray diffraction to determine the erosion mechanism. The rate of erosion is determined by weight loss method and the CoCrAlY/Al2O3/YSZ coating showed up to about 25% lower erosion rate than the substrate alloy. It was observed that the erosion resistance of CoCrAlY/Al2O3/YSZ coating on both MDN 321 and Superni 76 gave almost similar erosion resistance which shows that the erosion behaviour of coating is not influenced by substrate unless spray parameter and substrate roughness is changed. 2017 Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.