SBIR Phase I: MEMS-Engineered Thermal-Barrier Bragg Reflectors for Gas-Turbine Engine Blades

这个小型企业创新研究项目将开发一种潜在的革命性技术创新，将显著提高燃气涡轮发动机的效率、使用寿命和可靠性。尽管涂层技术取得了巨大的进步，使操作温度大幅提高，但在过去的25年里，传统的纯材料科学方法的持续进步导致了边际收益的递减。问题是涡轮叶片由于辐射和导热传热而升温。利用mems制造方法，该团队将开发一种技术，在叶片上涂上布拉格反射器，根据辐射的光谱进行定制，这将减少从表面到涡轮叶片的热辐射十倍，从而提供了(1)增加涡轮叶片寿命的手段；(2)通过在明显更高的温度下运行发动机，获得相当高的运行效率。该团队将充分表征层状涂层的材料要求，并模拟最佳布拉格反射器的特性。拟议技术的经济价值将由其每年将现有设备成本降低100多亿美元的能力所驱动。这些节省将来自四个主要市场领域：(1)商用飞机上更高效、高性能的涡轮机，每年将节省50亿美元的燃料；(2)发电行业每年节省60亿美元；(3)每年为美军减少50亿美元的燃料成本；(4)每年将美军攻击机/战术飞机的拥有成本降低16亿美元。这些节省的燃料将反过来减少石油消耗，为社会带来显著的环境和政治效益。最后，将先进的MEMS技术引入涡轮叶片开发将促进对材料局限性和性能的技术理解。

This Small Business Innovation Research project will develop a potentially revolutionary technological innovation that will significantly increase the efficiency, lifetime and reliability of gas-turbine engines. Despite the tremendous improvements in coating technologies to enable huge increases in operational temperatures, continued advances using conventional, purely materials-science approaches have resulted in diminishing marginal returns in the last 25 years. The problem is that the turbine blades heat up as a result of radiative and conductive heat transport. Using MEMS-fabrication methods, the team will develop a technique to coat the blades with Bragg reflectors, tailored to the spectrum of the radiation, that will decrease the thermal radiation from the surface to the turbine blades tenfold, thereby providing the means to (1) increase turbine-blade lifetime; and (2) attain considerably higher operating efficiencies by operating the engines at significantly higher temperatures. The team will fully characterize the material requirements of the layered coatings and model the characteristics of an optimal Bragg reflector. The economic value of the proposed technology will be driven by its capability to reduce the cost of existing equipment by over $10 billion annually. These savings will come from four major market sectors: (1) more efficient, high-performance turbines for commercial aircraft that will result in a fuel saving of $5 billion annually; (2) annual savings from the power-generation industry of $6 billion; (3) cost reduction to the US military of $5 billion in annual fuel costs; and (4) reduction in the cost-of-ownership of US military attack/tactical aircraft by $1.6 billion annually. These fuel savings will in turn reduce oil consumption providing significant environmental and political benefits to society. Finally, introducing advanced MEMS techniques into turbineblade development will advance the technical understanding of materials limitations and properties.