Since 2008, Japanese boiler, turbine and valve manufacturers, research institutes and utility companies have been working together to develop 700V A·USC technology, with support from the Japanese government. The key areas of discussion are technology development of high temperature materials such as nickel-based alloys and advanced 9Cr steels, and their application to actual power plants. At the EPRI conference in 2013, our report mainly focused on the development of fundamental material and manufacturing technology during the first five years of the project, and the preparation status of the boiler component test and turbine rotor test for the latter four years of the project. The boiler component test, using a commercially-operating boiler, began in May 2015 and is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2016. The turbine rotor test at 700°C with actual speed will be carried out from September 2016 to March 2017. At this year’s conference, we will: l) briefly summarize the development of fundamental material and manufacturing technology and 2) provide an update on the progress of the boiler component test and the turbine rotor test.

The thermal barrier coating (TBC) system is currently a standard technology of gas turbine hot gas path parts to achieve a highly reliable long life operation of engines for a power supply. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, LTD. (MHI) has applied the TBC on the gas turbine blades, vanes and combustor parts. TBC system consists of MCrAlY as a bondcoat for oxidation protection at elevated temperature and YSZ (yttria stabilized zirconia) as a topcoat for efficient thermal barrier. The conditions where TBC has been in service are at the temperature up to 1500°C and with combustion gas environment. As far as the blades and the vanes are concerned, the MCrAlY bondcoat is coated by low pressure plasma spray (LPPS) or high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) system, and the YSZ topcoat is coated by atmospheric plasma spray (APS) system. In the case of the combustor parts, both the MCrAlY bondcoat and the YSZ topcoat are coated by APS. To increase the reliability and prolong the service life of the applied TBC in the gas turbine, it is very important to verify the coating properties, optimize the coating process parameters and control the coating process.