Fabrication of strain-isolated ceramic coated combustor components

The use of strain-isolated ceramic coated material to produce an AGT1500 combustor scroll-shaped transition duct which requires no air for film cooling is investigated. The scroll receives the exhaust of the can-style combustor liner and turns it into the annular inlet of the high pressure gas producer turbine nozzle. Strain-isolation of plasma sprayed thermal barrier coating is achieved by placing a compliant pad between the structural base metal and the ceramic coating. The compliant pad is brazed to the metal structure. In order to achieve a good braze bond, the strain-isolating compliant pad and base metal must be closely matched in shape and tightly fixtured for joining. The complex geometry of the AGT1500 scroll makes it impractical to attack pads to the supporting structure in its finished shape. Instead the pads are brazed to flat stock and post-formed into scroll sections. While test samples were successfully post-formed, plasma sprayed, and subjected to cyclic heating, the forming of full scale parts by normal methods resulted in tearing of the Hastelloy-X base metal because of embrittlement by the braze material. Several solutions were explored which finally resulted in the successful forming of full scale scroll parts.