The objective of this Statement of Need was to develop novel material thermal/environmental high temperature protective or barrier (T/EBC) coatings for increased sustainment and performance of military air and ground vehicle engines under all weather conditions and operational constraints. In particular, the proposed coating should have prevented the buildup of deleterious calcia-magnesia-alumino-silicates (CMAS) on gas turbine engine components. The proposed effort could have consisted of a modeling component (such as particulate impingement modeling on the heated gas turbine engine components, and subsequent buildup, etc.), as well as the following:

• Development of particulate resistant and CMAS-phobic high temperature thermal/environmental barrier coating and bulk substrate.
• Characterization of high temperature material in button-cell rig, thermomechanical fatigue and creep testing machines, and hot particulate ingestion jet burner rig.
• Test evaluations of proposed coated bulk substrate material under relevant engine flow conditions. The relevant engine tests can be conducted at a Department of Defense (DoD)/NASA/academia or an Engine OEM facility.
• Comparison of thermal and sand non-adherence performance of the new thermal barrier coating with respect to yttria stabilized zirconia, which is the current industry standard.

Ultimately, the proposed technology potentially could be transitioned to all of the DoD aviation and ground vehicle assets. The new T/EBC technology would be required to seamlessly integrate into new engines and retrofit into existing air, ship and ground vehicle gas turbine and piston engines. For military purposes, coated bulk materials of interest with bleed air cooling would have been expected to survive engine thermal temperatures from 1100 to 1500°C during sand ingestion engine tests.

Proposals were required to include a go/no go task for an initial assessment of the human health and environmental impacts of proposed ingredients, formulations, and byproducts. In addition, proposals should have included a task to establish a baseline lifecycle framework and identified the elements of a lifecycle inventory that were already known, those that would be investigated during the course of the project, and those that were beyond the scope of the proposed work.

Funded projects will appear below as project overviews are posted to the website.