Improved Attachment Design for Ceramic Turbine Blades Via Hybrid Concepts

This innovation is a hybrid metal-ceramic matrix composite (CMC) turbine blade in which a SiC/SiC CMC airfoil section is bonded to a single-crystal superalloy root section in order to mitigate risks associated with an all-CMC blade inserted in a superalloy disk. This will allow current blade attachment technology (SX blade with a dovetail attachment to a slotted Ni disk) to be used with a ceramic airfoil. The bond between the CMC and single crystal will be primarily mechanical in nature, and enhance with clamping arising from thermal expansion mismatch. Two single-crystal root sections will be bonded to each other using diffusion bonding at temperatures near 1,200 °C. The single crystals will form a clamshell around the CMC, with little or no gap between the metal and ceramic. Upon cooling, the metal will shrink around the CMC to firmly clamp it. It is envisioned that this will allow the blade root to operate at temperatures up to about 800 °C. Single crystals will resist stress relaxation at this temperature, thus maintaining clamping loads for long lives. The hybrid concept plus the method of manufacture is new technology.