Design aspects of a CMC coating-like system for hot surfaces of aero engine components

Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) is an emerging material system that can be a game changer in the aerospace industry, both civil and military. CMCs components are, in fact, lighter and less prone to fatigue failure in a high temperature environment. However, at high temperatures, the diffusion of oxygen and water vapour inside the CMC can have detrimental effects. Therefore, the presence of protective coating is necessary to extend the life of CMC components. In the present work, a three-layers coating, consisting of a silicon bond (BND), adhesively bonded to the CMC, an Environment Barrier Coating (EBC) and a softer layer 3 (LAY3), is investigated for a CMC component. An aero-engine high pressure turbine seal segment was considered. Two design aspects are covered: (i) creep law is determined and calibrated in environment Abaqus from the experimental data of each coating layer available in the open literature, to provide a suitable instrument for the creep relaxation analyses of hot components; (ii) thickness sensitivity study of each layer of the coating is conducted to minimise the interface stresses of coating with substrate in order to mitigate cracking and removal/spalling phenomena when exposed to temperature gradients and to increase their service life. These two different aspects are combined together to predict the coating stress field as a function of service time.