Advanced High Temperature Turbine Seals Materials and Designs

Advanced turbine seal materials and designs are under development to achieve higher temperature capability, extended lifetime and reliability than the state of the art technology. Cooling air consumption, inspection cycles interval and repair costs of aero engines have to be reduced. In the following, results of a program funded by the European Community under the "Competitive and Sustainable Growth"-Program, project number GRD-1999-10608 (acronym: "ADSEALS") are presented. The relevant properties of advanced high temperature seal materials, especially FeCrAlalloys and ceramic abradables, as well as advanced seal structures, like thin walled honeycombs, gradient fibre and hollow sphere structures as well as gradient porous coatings have been evaluated. The material and structure combinations which meet the advanced requirements were tested and validated in order to develop the most capable innovative technology for advanced gas turbine seals.