Engineering of Superalloys

• Gas turbines - how they work, examples

• Operating conditions in a gas turbine
• Materials in turbines and turbine blades
• Evolution of Ni-base superalloy turbine blades
– alloy development
– processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
– blade cooling
– coatings
– HIPing, liquid metal cooling
• The future ?
Jane Blackford

“Superalloys as a class constitute the currently

reigning aristocrats of the metallurgical world. They
are the alloys which have made jet flight possible,
and they show what can be achieved by drawing
together and exploiting all the resources of modern
physical and process metallurgy in the pursuit of a
very challenging objective.”

from R.W. Cahn The coming of materials science, 2001.

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 How does a gas turbine work ?
Newton’s 3rd Law

MV

Equilibrium Reaction Action

Thrust = Mass x Velocity (MV)

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

Gas turbines
• Aircraft
– civil
– military
• Industrial
– for power generation

• based on the same principles

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 Propeller versus Jet Propulsion

Propeller - moves Mvjet

LARGE MASS of
air at low velocity

Mvaircraft
Thrust = M(vaircraft - vjet)

Thrust = m(Vaircraft - Vjet)

Jet - moves small

mVjet mass of gas at HIGH
mVaircraft VELOCITY

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

Modern civil aircraft engines

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 Jet Engine Layout

Compressor Combustion Exhaust

Chamber Nozzle
mVaircraft
mVjet

Shaft Turbine

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

What are the operating conditions

inside a gas turbine ?

In particular think about the forces

and environment turbine blades
are subjected to….

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 Turbine blades in a jet engine experience:
Mechanical forces
• creep
• fatigue
• thermomechanical fatigue

•High temperature environment

• oxidation
• hot corrosion

Pressure and Temperature

40

Pressure
(atmospheres)
0

1500

Temperature
(degrees C)
0

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

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 Design of modern aircraft turbine
engines and the materials used

NB drive to increase operating

temperatures as this increases
maximum speed and improves
efficiency (lower fuel costs)

Multiple Shafts - Trent 95,000 lbs Thrust

LP System
IP System 1 Fan stage
8 Compressor stages 5 Turbine stages
1 Turbine stage >3,000 rpm
>7,500 rpm

HP System
6 Compressor stages
1 Turbine stage
>10,000 rpm

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

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 From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

Material Strength
Specific Strength

Titanium Alloy

Nickel Alloy

Steel
Aluminium Alloy

Temperature

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

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 Ni-based superalloys are used for
turbine blades

Now we will consider

their evolution

Evolution of Ni-based superalloy

turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

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 Evolution of Ni-based superalloy
turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

1. Alloy development (historical)

- America 1930, Ti and Al added to the classic heating element

alloy nichrome (Ni-20Cr), resulted in significant increase in creep
resistance

- 1940s first superalloy Nimonic 75 made

- high creep resistance thought to be due to precipitation

hardening
- confirmed by Taylor and Floyd (1951-2) with their work on
phase diagrams [time of quantitative revolution in metallurgy]:
age hardening was due to an ordered intermetallic phase Ni3Al
and Ni3Ti (or rather Ni3(Al, Ti) (γ‘) dispersed in a more Ni rich
disordered matrix (γ)

-Both γ and γ’ phases are cubic, with their cube axes parallel;
structure extremely fine in scale (γ’ cuboids <0.5µm)

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1. Alloy development (historical)

- Westbrook 1957
discovered the highly unusual characteristic of γ’ of becoming
stronger with increasing temperature (reason ? … to do with the
geometry of dislocations in the phase…)

Maximum creep rupture life when the mismatch in lattice

parameters of γ and γ’ is a small fraction of 1% and when volume
fraction of γ’ is as high as possible.
(Decreasing the mismatch from 0.2% to zero led to a 50x
increase in creep rupture life!)

The microstructure is also unusually stable - the γ’ precipitates

coarsen (Ostwald ripening) very very slowly, because of the low
interfacial energy between the γ and γ’

Evolution of Ni-based superalloy

turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

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 Investment casting
• Vacuum process, reduces oxide contamination
• Huge advances in process cleanliness made
about 20-30 years ago
- led to considerable improvements in blade properties
• Controlled cooling (directional solidification)
enables microstructural control
• Cooling channels can be cast into the blade
(using a ceramic cored mould)
• Blades heat treated (solution treatment + aged)

Improvements in blade microstructure

Equiaxed Directionally
Single Crystal
Crystal Structure Solidified Structure

From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

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 Turbine blade heat treatment
As-cast dendritic microstructure

longitudinal
section

transverse
section
simulation of
dendrite growth snow crystal
micrographs of DS as-cast
dendrite
superalloy IN792

Turbine blade heat treatment

As-cast dendritic
microstructure
precipitation
hardened:
γ’ in γ matrix

precipitation hardening
(solution treatment
+ ageing)

γ’ γ

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 Evolution of Ni-based superalloy
turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

Turbine Cooling

Cooling air
Single pass Multi-pass Thermal Barrier
Coating
From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

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 Evolution of Ni-based superalloy
turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

4. Alloy development (modern)

Modern Ni-based superalloys contain 10+ alloying additions (plus

impurities)
Solid solution strengthening (Co, Cr, Fe, Mo, W, Ta,Re)
Grain boundary strengthening with carbides (W, Ta, Ti, Mo, Nb,
Hf, Cr) and other precipitates (e.g. carbonitrides)
γ’ formers Al, Ti
Improve oxidation resistance (Al, Cr, Y, La, Ce)
Improve hot corrsion resistance (Cr, Co, Si, La, Th)
Grain boundary refiners (B, C, Zr, Hf)

Development of new alloys is a combination of experimental

work, modelling and black art

see Sims for microstructural developments

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 Evolution of Ni-based superalloy
turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

Coatings

coating substrate

environment

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5. Coatings
(i) for oxidation (and hot corrosion) resistance
Aluminide diffusion coatings (used on ca. 80% HP blades)
by pack aluminising process
(alternative IVD+HIP)
based on NiAl (50µm thick)
MCrAlY overlay coatings
by physical vapour deposition (PVD) process
based on MCrAlY (100-200µm thick)
(ii) thermal barrier coatings (see slide on blade cooling)
ceramic materials - e.g. zirconia (0.3-0.4mm thick)
used to insulate blade
deposited on top of MCrAlY overlay coating
see Nicholls and Stephenson 1991

Evolution of Ni-based superalloy

turbine blades

1. Alloy development (historical)

2. Processing (equiaxed, DS, SC)
3. Blade cooling
4. Alloy development (modern)
5. Coatings
6. Novel processing

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 6. Novel processing

• Hot isostatic pressing (HIPping)

• Liquid metal cooling (LMC)

Improvement of cast superalloy turbine blade properties by

hot isostatic pressing (HIPping)
Cast alloys often contain pores, these are
detrimental to the mechanical properties

HIP = simultaneous application of high temperature

(up to 2000°C) and pressure (up to 200MPa) via
inert (argon) gas

HIPping can remove sealed porosity from castings

(cast +HIP = forged) (NB the casting remains solid -
you don’t want it to melt....)

90+% of high pressure turbine blades are HIPped

Blades can be “rejuvenated” by HIPping

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Improvement of cast superalloy turbine blade properties by
hot isostatic pressing (HIPping)

To illustrate the effectiveness of the HIP process a 25mm diameter

hole was machined in two halves of a stainless steel block 75mm
square.
The edges of the block were welded together, the air evacuated from
the hole and the evacuation pipe sealed to create a subsurface pore.
The block was HIPped and subsequently cut in half to reveal fully
dense material and complete absence of any pore.

Liquid metal cooling

• Improved
microstructures
• Faster solidification
- higher throughput
and reduced costs

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 The future ?

Alloy development
Development of new alloys is a combination of
experimental work, modelling and black art

Further improvements - YES, but the scope is limited as

superalloys now operate at 85-90% of their melting
temperature

Cheaper alloys

Develop concurrently with coating systems

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 Process development
Larger blades

Process cleanliness

LMC?

Reduce hot tearing in DS blades

Higher production yield of single crystal blades

Computer modelling of
single crystal superalloy
solidification
illustrates how a single
grain is selected using the
“spiral selector”
the grain has an <001>
orientation oriented
vertically

from Bhadeshia

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