In-Service Reliability Assessment of Turbine Blade Thermal Barrier Coatings Based on a Novel Cumulative Damage Index Model

Abstract

Thermal barrier coating (TBC) has been used widely on turbine blades to provide temperature and oxidation protection. With the turbine inlet temperature continuously increasing, TBCs have become more likely to oxide spallation, leading to premature failure of blade metal substrates. Thus, It is necessary to accurately evaluate the in-service reliability of TBCs for blade life assessment and engine operation safety. Nowadays, it is common to dynamically record aero-engine operating and performance data, called dynamic covariate data, which provides periodic snapshots for obtaining reliability information of engine components. Nevertheless, existing TBC life prediction models that pay adequate attention to dynamic covariate information are rare. This paper focuses on using limited failure samples with associated dynamic covariate data to make in-service reliability assessments of TBCs through a proposed cumulative damage index model. For the demonstration of the proposed approach, an integrated TBC life simulation approach has been introduced, which comprises engine performance, blade thermal, TBC damage, and damage accumulation models. The case study shows that the proposed cumulative damage index model-based method provides more stable and accurate results than the traditional statistical method based on failure-time data.