Tribological characterization of plasma sprayed CoNiCrAlY-BN abradable coatings

The processing conditions, microstructural and tribological characterizations of plasma sprayed CoNiCrAlY-BN high temperature abradable coatings are reported in this manuscript. Plasma spray torch parameters were varied to produce a set of abradable coatings exhibiting a broad range of porosity levels (34-62%) and superficial Rockwell hardness values (0-78 HR15Y). Abradability tests have been performed using an abradable-seal test rig capable of simulating operational wear at different rotor speeds and seal incursion rates. These tests allowed determining the rubbing forces and quantifying the blade and seal wear characteristics for slow and fast seal incursion rates. Erosion wear performance and ASTM C633 coating adhesion strength test results are also reported. For optimal abradability performance, it is shown that coating hardness needs to be lower than 70 and 50 HR15Y for slow and fast blade incursion rate conditions, respectively. It is shown that the erosion wear performance, as well as, the coating cohesive strength is a function of the coating hardness. The current results allow defining the coating specifications in terms of hardness and porosity for targeted applications.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye