Concept Optimization for Coating Application and Quality of APS Applied TBC on Gas Turbine Blades and Vanes

There are different concepts for TBC coating application that varies in the method of applying the coating layers. An analysis of the existing part portfolio sprayed with different coating concepts shows that there is a 75 % difference in spray performance depending on which concept is used. This could lead to major savings regarding costs and time. This paper shows the effective use of offline programming tools in combination with a detailed coating process analysis. Based on this a time optimized coating concept for vanes and blades was developed. The validation of this optimized coating concept shows an improvement of more than 7 5 % in spray performance leading to a coating time improvement of up to 40%.