Materials E-Guide
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For military applications, afterburners help supersonic aircraft to rapidly increase thrust on demand by burning additional fuel in a combustor after the turbine– a crucial factor in combat operations. Oerlikon Metco’s thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) ensure the service life and mission-readiness of afterburner components.
Mission Ready When Needed
Our legacy and advanced thermal barrier coatings — complemented by perfectly matching air plasma gun technology — are designed and developed to not only address heat insulation requirements but also to provide solutions against gas erosion and CMAS corrosion.
Case Study: Thermal Spraying of a F100 Augmenter
The F100 afterburner is a large component with an interior surface area (depending on the engine model) of approximately 6.3 m2 (68 ft2). The MCrAlY bond coat (Amdry™ 962) is applied to a thickness of 0.075 to 0.125 mm (0.003 to 0.005 in) and the top coat (Metco™ 204NS) is applied 0.2 to 0.3 mm (0.008 to 0.010 in) thick. Although the overall coating thickness is relatively thin for a TBC coating, spray process times are quite long due to the large size and geometric complexity of the part. Using conventional plasma spray, 4.5 hours are required to apply the TBC system and the spray gun must be maintained after 15 hours of spray time, causing a work stoppage after every three augmenters.
Cascaded arc plasma spray torches are now a proven technology for reducing the application costs of TBC systems. For example, the Oerlikon Metco TriplexPro™-210 spray gun applies coatings as much as 300% more efficiently than traditional plasma spray guns due to higher feed rates and much improved part-to-part reliability of the coating. In the case of the F100 augmenter, the entire TBC system is applied in only 1.5 hours. Overhauling the plasma torch only needs to occur every 150 to 200 spray hours.
Key Benefits:
- Faster processing time, reducing labor and utility costs;
- Part turn time is reduced, and thermal spray cell production throughput is increased;
- Improved coating consistency reduces the chance for rework;
- Improved part-to-part consistency improves mission reliability.