SOLID PARTICLE EROSION OF TBCS: JET TESTER MODELING AND EROSION FORECASTS.

Thermal barrier coatings (TBC) are multi-layer system deposited on gas turbines components to protect their metallic surface from hot combustion gases. Depending on the operating conditions of the gas turbine, solid particle erosion can became critical for TBCs lifetime: in fact, sand, volcanic ashes could enter into the turbine promoting erosion. At RSE solid particle erosion tests have been performed in different testing conditions (particle speed, erodent composition, impingement angle and temperature) on TBC with different microstructures for comparison purposes. As A first step to forecast erosion in gas turbine, the laboratory jet tester has been simulated by a simple analytical model describing the speed of erodent particles as a function of their size and shape. By this way, for each TBC type, the volume eroded by a single particle is estimated and a rough evaluation of the overall erosion rate has been obtained, after a preliminary calibration of a kinetic energy model performed by using experimental data. Simulated erosion rate for four different types of TBCs (standard porous APS, EB-PVD, PS-PVDTM and highly segmented APS) has been investigated as a function of the test conditions, and compared with experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]