The Fossil R The Fossil R The Fossil Report

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Fossil Energy Program Winter 2002

Energy Technology for the Future...and for the World

IN THIS ISSUE

New Work Focuses on Materials Needs f ocuses on Materials Needs for

USC Steam Cycle USC Steam Cycle Turbine

Interest Grows For Fibrils In Commercial Interest Grows For Fibrils In Commercial

Applications Applications

Tom Schmidt Retir om Schmidt Retires

Argonne Continues Work On NDE For

Thermal Barrier Coatings Thermal Barrier Coatings

Electronic Repor onic Reporting Takes A Step Forward

New Technique For Applying Thermal Bar Thermal Barrier

Coatings Under Development elopment At ORNL

The Fossil Report is published quarterly by

Paul T. Carlson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Fossil Energy Program

UNITED WE STAND

Interest Grows For Fibrils In

Commercial Applications Applications

ReMaxCo Technologies, a participant on the Advanced

Research Materials Program, recently completed the

first phase of a project to demonstrate the feasibility of

microwave growth of silicon carbon fibrils.

The success of this first phase has captured the attention of industry.

Dick Nixdorf, President, reports that “several large–cap

companies in the polymer fiber business have approached ReMaxCo with interest in spinning fibrils for

high-temperature, high-strength commercial applications.”

In addition, a commercial consortium, comprised of

major players in the computer chip business, has asked

ReMaxCo to consider using the fibril product for imparting certain enhanced properties to improving the

capacity of printed circuit boards for computers.

The reaction vessel of the first phase was not capable

of growing significant quantities of silicon carbide fibrils;

however, new equipment, suitable for larger-quantity

production, is being designed and will be tested in midSee Interest Grows on page 2

See Turbines on page 3

New Work Focuses on Materials Needs ocuses on Materials Needs

for USC Steam Cycle or USC Steam Cycle Turbine

A six-year project, involving the U.S. Department of Energy, the Ohio Coal Development Office, EPRI, a

consortium of boiler manufacturers, and the Oak Ridge

National Laboratory, is in progress to identify, evaluate,

and qualify the materials needed for tubing and piping

in the construction of a coal-fired, ultra-supercritical

steam power boiler.

Such a boiler will deliver steam to the high-pressure

turbine at a temperature of at least 1350°F (732°C) and

pressure at 5,000 psi (35 MPa), with at least one reheat at 1400°F (760°C) to the intermediate-pressure

turbine. No steam turbine presently operates at such

severe conditions.

As a result, a new project has been initiated to determine what materials developments are needed to ensure that steam turbines can be built for application in

USC steam plants.

The specific targets are aligned with the destinations

of the DOE-CURC-EPRI Clean Coal Technology

Roadmap, of 677°C steam in the near-term (by 2010),
2

THE FOSSIL REPORT WINTER 2002

Tom Schmidt Retir om Schmidt Retires

On January 31, the ORNL Fossil Energy Program bid

farewell to Tom Schmidt, Manager

of the Oil and Gas Research Programs.

Tom was responsible for considerable growth in the oil and gas research areas of the Fossil Energy

Program, drawing on his extensive

background in the industry.

Tom earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 1967. His

research, done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the direction of Sheldon Datz of the Chemistry Division, involved the first molecular beam measurements of a

chemical reaction that was not an

alkali/halide reaction.

That same year, he accepted a position with

Phillips Petroleum Research and Development in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. During his

26 years with Phillips, he authored 11 patents and received an IR-100 award in 1979 for his invention of a Dual Molecular Beam Mass Spectrometer.

At Phillips, Tom managed programs in Thermodynamics and Engineering Data, Fuels and

Lubricants, Crude Oil Properties, Fusion Energy, Solar Energy, Coal Liquefaction, Laboratory Safety, and Operation of the first Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)-approved hazardous waste incinerator

in the United States.

In 1993, Tom returned to ORNL as a

program development manager in

the areas of Petroleum, Hydrogen,

and Energy Efficiency.

He represented ORNL in the Natural

Gas and Oil Technology Partnership

and helped in the development of a

large number of new research

projects for ORNL.

In the years ahead, Tom plans to

complete the development of 105 acres of Tennessee land known as Lost Ridge Views. His

plans also include construction of two fishing

lakes and a house.

Tom Schmidt

2003.

In its role on the Fossil Energy Program, “ReMaxCo

remains focused on high-temperature materials to address problems in high-efficiency, coal-fired steam

plants,” says Nixdorf.

Recent interest seems to suggest that ReMaxCo’s consideration of volume production of fibrils could result in

price reductions for the commercial textile fiber and the

computer industry as well.

For more information on this activity, please contact Richard

Nixdorf, ReMaxCo technologies, Inc.

This work in sponsored by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy,

National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Interest Grows from page 1 Argonne Continues Work On NDE For

Thermal Barrier Coatings Thermal Barrier Coatings

As a part of the effort to improve reliability of thermal

barrier coatings for advanced coal-gas fired turbines,

Argonne National Laboratory researchers have recently

completed a series of tests using their patented elastic optical backscatter NDE method.

These tests confirmed that the laser backscatter is sensitive to the condition of the interface below the TBC,

which is a likely indicator of a pre-spall condition.

The work has been conducted in conjunction with the

South Carolina Institute for Energy Studies (SCIES) Program at the University of Pittsburgh.

For more information on this work, please contact Bill

Ellingson, Argonne National Laboratory.
3

THE FOSSIL REPORT WINTER 2002

Electronic Repor onic Reporting Takes A Step F A Step Forward

Since it’s inception, the Fossil Energy Advanced Research Materials Program, the anchor of the Materials Research

and Development activities of the ORNL Fossil Energy Program, has required each subcontractor participant to document the research in topical and final reports.

Over the years, these reports have been published in paper form and distributed to

select, but limited, distributions.

With the Web quickly becoming the primary medium for virtually all information gathering, the ARM Program has made a move to full electronic publishing of technical reports from subcontractors.

Henceforth, all such reports will be uploaded to the Fossil Energy Program Web site in

Adobe Acrobat format and be configured to permit searching using the Adobe Acrobat

search engine.

Subcontracting organizations will realize significant savings in time and expense with

this new publishing pathway. Additionally, current research will be available to a virtually unlimited distribution in a more timely fashion.

Over the next several months, the Fossil Energy Program Web site will be extensively

redesigned and will have direct links to all Advanced Research Materials Program

reports published since October 2002.

It is hoped that this new approach will provide researchers around the world with ready access to the technologies

being developed on the Fossil Energy Program.

And, your IN tray will be a lot less cluttered.

Turbines from page 1

and 760°C steam in the far-term (2020), as well as for

future extensions to steam temperatures of 760-850°C.

The first phase of the project will assess recent developments worldwide in materials technology and steam

turbine design to provide a basis for identifying critical

materials needs and the major technical barriers.

Prioritization of the materials and manufacturing needs

thus identified will be based on input from various stakeholders, and a work statement and implementation plan

will be drawn up to address the CCT Roadmap needs.

Experimental work will draw heavily on basic understanding of alloy processing, microstructural evolution,

and mechanical property changes with time and temperature, which will be applied to obvious candidates in

specific alloy classes to provide insight into the possibilities of manipulation to extend the performance of

current alloys, as well as the potential for and capabilities of significant alloy modification.

Data generated in all the phases of the program will be

entered into a relational database that will be used to

store, organize, and facilitate its retrieval and use. Close

contacts will be maintained with the turbine manufacturers and the USC boiler project.

The project is led by Ian Wright and Phil Maziasz at

ORNL, and Cindy Dogan at the Albany Research Center, and will include participants from other institutions

who provide specific experience, expertise, and capabilities.

For more information on this work, contact Ian Wright,

Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

This work is sponsored by the DOE Office of Fossil

Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory.
4

THE FOSSIL REPORT WINTER 2002

New Technique For Applying Thermal Thermal Thermal

Barrier Coatings Under Development elopment At

ORNL

Thermal barrier coating systems are being increasingly

applied to improve the

performance, efficiency,

and longevity of gas turbine engines. The thermal barrier is a ceramic

layer, made of yttria-stabilized zirconia.

TBCs improve lifetimes

by reducing the turbine

blade temperature, in

conjunction with internal

blade cooling, enabling

these components to operate in combustion gas

streams at temperatures above the

melting temperature of the blade alloy. The result is increased power

and/or improved efficiency.

TBCs consist of an inner aluminum-rich bond coating

that forms a

protective

alumina

scale to protect the turbine blade

from oxidation, and an

outer, thermally-insulating YSZ

top coating.

The YSZ

top coating

is currently

deposited onto

the bond coating by electron

beam, physical

vapor deposition (EB-PVD) or by plasma spray techniques.

Although EB-PVD TBCs typically have provided the best

overall performance, the downside is that the EB-PVD

process is very costly.

An alternative being developed at ORNL, under the direction of Ted Besmann, working with University of Louisville Professor Tom Starr and University of Florida

graduate student Venu Varanasi, is metallorganic chemical vapor deposition, or MOCVD.

The MOCVD technique is potentially, significantly cheaper than EB-PVD, and the economics of a process is often what drives its

ultimate commercialization and wide-scale

use.

In fact, the goal of the present work at ORNL

is to obtain the 250-380 μm-thick YSZ coatings, with a similar microstructure to that of

EBPVD, but at a much lower cost.

Equally important, the technique can permit

coating of surfaces which are unavailable to

EB-PVD, since the latter is a line-of-sight process, and can also be used to produce a uniform seal-coating on an EB-PVD layer.

Recent results indicate that the use of MOCVD for the

rapid deposition of columnar YSZ coatings is encouraging.

A columnar YSZ microstructure has been found to be

desirable, in that it allows stress relief between the highmodulus, relatively low-thermal-expansion-coefficient

ceramic coating and the alumina layer formed on the

bond coating.

In fact, it is widely accepted that the ability of the current

EB-PVD technique to produce a columnar microstructure is a major contributor to the long life of these coatings.

The current work at ORNL, according to Besmann, has

the “potential to replace EB-PVD with the more efficient

MOCVD technique, while preserving the desired microstructure, and has the unique potential of being able to

coat hidden areas.”

For more information on this activity, contact Ted Besmann

or Ian Wright, Oak Ridge National laboratory

This work in sponsored by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy,

National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Optical image of a YSZ coating

deposited on alumina

(deposition time of 113 min)

Typical TBC System

EB-PVD YSZ

250-380 μm