The Processing of gas turbine engine hot section materials through directional solidification.

Development of directionally solidified γ-TiAl structures

“…1, and described in detail in Refs. [30,32]. A portion of a master alloy bar was placed in a mold and then located on the copper chill plate.…”

Sub-solidus and super-solidus heat treatments of a single crystal superalloy

“…The present thesis research is a part of the on-going collaborative research program between Carleton University and the National Research Council, which aims to understand the physical metallurgy of SX Ni-base superalloy system by studying the correlations of chemistry, microstructure, and properties of experimental alloys. As part of this program, a pilot scale Bridgman furnace has been commissioned at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Carleton University [7]. The directional solidification (DS) process modeling and simulation studies have been completed and optimum processing conditions have been established [8].…”

“…Gas turbine blades operate in the most arduous environment of high temperature, high pressure, particulate erosion and high temperature corrosion [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Being rotating parts there is an added complication of centrifugal force exerting axial tension on the blades during the turbine operation.…”

“…A detailed procedure for SX processing in the Bridgman furnace has been described in the earlier studies resulted from extensive experimental work [7][8][9]. In this work, the procedure optimized in the previous study is replicated with the only exception that argon is used instead of high vacuum as the inert medium in the Bridgman furnace.…”

“…2 of this thesis, this research is a part of the on-going collaborative program between the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of Carleton University and the Institute for Aerospace Research (IAR),NRC. An initial phase of this program involved the commissioning of a pilot scale Bridgman furnace at Carleton University for casting high temperature materials such as superalloys and titanium aluminides in DS and SX forms[7]. After successfully installing the casting facility, this phase of the program included research aimed at understanding the heat transfer characteristics during the DS and SX casting processes in the Bridgman furnace[8].…”