Gas Turbine Tribology

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee


1. Introduction
Modern land-based turbine airfoils operate in severe environments with high temperatures and
near critical stresses. Highly turbulent combustor exit flows, with significant thermal gradients
spew hot combustion products and other airborne particulates at the turbine surfaces for in excess
of 20,000 hours before regularly scheduled maintenance [1]. Due to this harsh operating
environment turbine surfaces experience significant degradation with service Technical
advancements in the design and manufacture of gas path turbomachinery components over the
past two decades have only heightened the significance of understanding the effects of owpath
degradation on gas turbine operation. For example, surface coatings in both the compressor and
turbine, more aggressive airfoil shapes, advanced rotor tip and passage endwall designs, and an
increased number of bleeds to feed more intricate film cooling hole geometries are among the
technologies that have created an increased urgency for fundamental research into the root
causes and effects of degradation. As evidence of this increased emphasis, Figure 1. shows the
number of degradation-related journal articles that have been published each year in three of the
leading publications for gas turbine research.

Figure 1. Journal and conference articles published in the field of Gas Turbine Roughness,
Turbomachinery, Gas Turbines and Power, Propulsion and Power, and Aircraft from 1970 to
2010. [2]
The rising trend evidenced in the gure is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as gas
turbines continue to command an impressive market share in both the power generation and
transportation industries. Wind turbines have had various limitations to their mechanical system
reliability owing to tribological problems over the past few decades [3]. Although current turbine
designs have addressed and solved a number of the problems plaguing their predecessors,
tribological issues still exist. This is evident from the data of Bell (2006), shown in figure 1,
which indicate that the number of failures per turbine per year in Denmark and Germany
dropped from 1 and 2.5,

Figure 2. Data from Bell (2006) indicate that the number of failures per turbine per year in
Denmark (grey circles) and Germany (black triangles) dropped from 1 and 2.5, respectively, in
1994 to 0.5 and 0.8 in 2004 [4]
2. Lubrication
Mineral oils are very popular for lubrication. It has several positive features such as easy
availability and relatively low cost. On the other hand mineral oils also have several serious
defects, such as oxidation and viscosity loss at high temperatures, combustion or explosion in the
presence of strong oxidizing agents and solidification at low temperatures. These effects are
prohibitive in gas turbine engines where a high temperature lubricant is required, but
occasionally very low temperatures must be sustained. [5]
To overcome some of the shortcomings of the mineral oils, synthetic lubricants were developed.
Synthetic lubricants were originally introduced early this century by countries lacking a reliable
supply of mineral oil. These lubricants were expensive and initially did not gain general
acceptance. The use of synthetic oils increased gradually, especially in more specialized
applications for which mineral oils were inadequate.
In other applications such as vacuum pumps and jet engines, low vapour pressure lubricant is
needed; in food processing and the pharmaceutical industry low toxicity lubricant is required,
etc. In recent years the strongest demand has been for high performance lubricants, especially for
applications in the aviation industry with high performance gas turbine engines.
Gearing power transmission is a very important mechanism in any machine having rotating
components. Snidle et al. presents a brief review of developments in understanding of gear tooth
contact lubrication in relation to problems of surface durability and distress [6]. Gear tooth
contacts tend to operate under conditions where the lubricating oil film is thin compared to
surface roughness.

Figure 3. Gear tooth mesh mechanics (left) and performance of gear of two different surface
finish (right)
3. Wear in Gas Turbine
3.1 Erosive Wear
Erosive wear is caused by the impact of particles of solid or liquid against the surface of an
object. Erosive wear occurs in a wide variety of machinery and typical examples are the damage
to gas turbine blades when an aircraft flies through dust clouds, and the wear of pump impellers
in mineral slurry processing systems. Figure 3. shows two severely eroded gas turbine blades.

Figure 4. Severely eroded turbine blades
Impingement angles play a vital role in erosion mechanics. At zero impingement angle there is
negligible wear because the eroding particles do not impact the surface, although even at
relatively small impingement angles of about 20, severe wear may occur if the particles are hard
and the surface is soft. Wear similar to abrasive wear prevails under these conditions. If the
surface is brittle then severe wear by fragmentation of the surface may occur reaching its
maximum rate at impact angles close to 90.

Figure 5. Impingement angle of a particle causing erosion of surface.
The relationship between the wear rate and impingement angle for ductile and brittle materials is
shown in Figure 5.

Figure 6. Schematic representation of the effect of impingement angle on wear rates of ductile
and brittle materials.
The rate and mechanism of erosive wear are influenced by temperature. The primary effect of
temperature is to soften the eroded material and increase wear rates. The effects of temperature
on erosion of stainless steel are shown in Figure 5 [7]. It is not until temperatures higher than
600C are reached that the erosion rate shows significant increase.

Figure 7. Effect of temperature on the erosive wear rate of stainless steel
In common with other forms of wear, mechanical strength does not guarantee wear resistance
and a detailed study of material characteristics is required for wear minimization. The properties
of the eroding particle are also significant and are increasingly being recognized as a relevant
parameter in the control of this type of wear.
New blade coatings and materials are continuously being developed to meet the challenging
requirements of modern gas turbine engines.Because of the serious consequences of erosion on
gas turbine life and performance, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the blade
surface degradation mechanisms. [8]
Turbine vane/blade surface deterioration is strongly dependent on the turbine geometry, blade
surface material, and particle characteristics. Hamed et al. conducted simultaneous experiment
and computer simulation on turbine blade erosion. Their experimental results for blade and
coating material erosion indicate that both erosion rate and surface roughness increase with the
eroding particle impact velocities and impingement angles and that larger particles produce
higher surface roughness. Table 1 shows the measured surface roughness of the blades that they
used for the experiments.
Table 1. Roughness parameters for pressure surface roughened blades. [6]
Location Ra Rq Rp Rt
Suction side, leading edge 5.75 7.30 13.82 44.10
Pressure side, leading edge 3.93 5.72 11.84 36.37
Pressure side, mid chord 3.28 4.51 9.63 31.92
Pressure side, trailing edge 4.04 5.61 12.60 33.24

3.2 Hot Corrosion in Gas Turbine
During combustion in the gas turbine, sulfur from the fuel reacts with sodium chloride from
ingested air at elevated temperatures to form sodium sulfate. The sodium sulfate then deposites
on the hot-section components, such as nozzle guide vanes and rotor blades, resulting in
accelerated oxidation (or sulfidation) attack. This is commonly referred as hot corrosion. [9]
High-temperature alloys that suffered hot corrosion attack were generally found to exhibit both
oxidation and sulfidation.

Figure 8. Scanning electron back scattered image showing thecrosssectionofacorrodedIC-218
nickel aluminide specimen after hot corrosion burner rig testing at 900C
Abradable coatings are provided to resist thermal corrosion. Figure 7. shows coated and
uncoated turbine blade under high temperature corrosion and a heavily corroded turbine blade.

Figure 9. Coated and uncoated turbine blade under high temperature corrosion (left) heavily
corroded turbine blade (right).
Due to extreme temperatures on the turbine side of gas turbine engines, brazed or welded
metallic structures made from nickel (Ni) based alloys have typically been used to provide gas
path sealing. When thermal shock resistant ceramics became available, oxide ceramic, mostly
zirconia based high temperature abradable seals for the high pressure turbine stages were
developed. Turbine designers need to decide on a case-by-case basis whether metallic or ceramic
abradables should be used and whether they can be cut by bare or hard tipped blades [10].
4. Tribology and Gas Turbine Performance
In last two decades, air traffic volume has increased considerably, whereas the total quantity of
fuel consumed has remained almost unchanged. The jet engine manufacturers strongly
contributed towards this by increasing engine efficiency and power generation. This was
achieved by raising the operating temperatures, by the use of efficient aerodynamic design and
by the use of lightweight materials. Because all of these are mature technologies, one of the last
means to further increase the efficiency is the reduction of the clearance distance between the
blade tip and casing.
4.1 Use of Advanced Materials
Development in advanced materials, more than anything else, have contributed to the spectacular
progress in thrust-to-weight ratio of the aero gas turbine. This has been achieved in the main
through the substitution of titanium and nickel alloys for steel (Figure 8.) [11].A modern turbine
blade alloy is complex in that it contains up to ten significant alloying elements, but its
microstructure is very simple. In the alloy case the block are an intermetallic compound with
the approximate composition Ni3(Al,Ta), whereas the cement is a nickel solid solution
containing chromium, tungsten and rhenium.
Abradables are not restricted to aeroengines. They can be used in most rotating machinery such
as stationary gas turbines, turbo compressors, radial compressors, turbo charges, and pumps. The
reduction of the blade tip to casing clearance can result in the blades rubbing against the shroud.
By coating the shroud with abradables, however, this interaction can be tolerated [12].

Figure 10. Evolution of materials used in aero gas turbine

Figure 11. High temperature strength and hot corrosion trade-off with conventionally cast
turbine airfoil alloys [13]
Turbine airfoil alloy development typically emphasized high temperature strength and creep
resistance at the expense of reduced ductility and resistance to shock, oxidation and hot
corrosion. The effects of reduced chromium and increased stress rupture life with a hot corrosion
resistance debit are shown in Figure 9. [13].
Yun et al. conducted performance tests in a low-speed, single-stage, axial flow turbine with
roughened blades. Figure 10. shows roughened turbine and the performance plot [14]. They
concluded that blade surface roughness severely degrades turbine efficiency.

Figure 12. Roughened test turbine (left) and efficiency plots.
The study of turbine component roughness and its associated shear drag and convective heat
transfer characteristics is important to increasing turbine component lifespan and even increasing
overall engine efficiency by characterizing how much turbine surface degradation can cost the
engine performance [15].
5. Conclusion
The various roughness mechanisms had very distinct signatures. Air borne contaminants were
typically acts as surface spikes while hot corrosion resulted in surface pitting. The surface
statistical skewness is a natural delineator between these two roughness forms and may be an
important parameter for roughness modeling. Erosion due to the combination of airborne
contaminants and corrosion resulted in much more irregular surfaces. Spallation was the most
significant form of surface roughness measured, with huge variations in surface character.
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