| Popis: |
Thermal validation of gas turbine components is one of the key activities performed for engine characteristics evaluation and verification of a newly developed product. There are several standard thermal validation methods: thermal paint, thermal crystals and thermocouples (TC). However, measurement results from all the above-mentioned techniques are affected by the design of the component or limited by the technological conditions of the application. This article is related to the specific part design applied by additive manufacturing (AM) for the first-stage gas turbine vane. Validation is performed by thermocouple measurement technique. Thermocouple gauges are instrumented inside the additively manufactured turbine vane without any negative impacts on the part cooling system or key interfaces, such as hot gas surfaces, and as a result without impact on the operation of the entire turbine component. Moreover, since guide vanes were covered with thermal barrier coating (TBC), and the metal temperature was recorded throughout the entire period of operation, it became possible to capture and analyze the effect of aging of the TBC. It is well known that the properties of TBC change over time and bring uncertainty into the component thermal state. This is due to the fact that the TBC conductivity value depends on the exposure time and the exposure temperature. Thermal validation work shown in this paper was performed in frame of new AM product development and supports all stages of product development process in Siemens Energy. |
