Abrasive medium

Abstract: An abrasive medium suitable for the cutting tip of a turbine blade of a gas turbine engine comprises cubic boron nitride grit coated with a layer of aluminium nitride. Coating of the grit particles is carried out by vapour deposition in a fluidised bed reaction.

Description: The invention relates to a turbine blade for an aeroengine. In particular, the invention concerns a turbine blade having an abrasive tip. It is well known in the technical field for aeroengines to be designed with shroudless turbine stages. Turbine efficiency is reduced by gas path leakage over the tips of the turbine blades, since gas lost in this way does no useful work. In more traditional turbine designs the radially outer ends of the turbine blades are provided with shrouds to reduce leakage. The shrouds of adjacent blades abut one another and effectively form an annular shroud ring. The upstream and downstream sides of this ring are sealed relative to the static engine casing. However, the weight of the shroud ring generates high centrifugal loads. Blade creep, that is elongation due to the high loads, limits rotor speed and life. The power which can be extracted from the turbine is determined, amongst other things, by its speed, and that is limited by the disadvantages of the blade tip shrouds. Shroudless blades offer the advantage of higher rotor speed and greater power output provided the gas path leakage problem is solved. A solution adopted in some modern gas turbine engines involves shroudless turbine blades with abrasive tips adapted to co-operate with an abradable liner. In theory, clearances over the turbine blade tips can be reduced significantly, for normal running conditions. Should a tip-rub occur as a result of engine casing distortion, for example, the abrasive tips will cut a track in the abradable liners. The incursion is only as deep as it needs to be and any increase in over-top leakage is minimised. A typical abradable liner, abrasive tip system consists of a layer of porous ceramic material deposited on nickel alloy liners and hard cutting grits embedded in a nickel alloy matrix on blade tips. A suitable cutting material often used is boron nitride in cubic crystal form. This material is second only to diamond in hardness. However, boron nitride suffers from an inherent disadvantage in that is has only a relatively short lifetime at turbine exhaust temperatures before being completely oxidised. The present invention is intended to overcome this drawback by coating the abrasive grits with a protective layer. Accordingly, the invention in its broadest form provides abrasive grits of cubic boron nitride coated with oxidation resistant material. According to one aspect of the invention an abrasive medium comprises a dispersion of coated cubic boron nitride grits in oxidation resistant material. Preferably the oxidation resistant material has a hardness greater than 1250 Vickers and may comprise aluminium nitride. The invention and how it may be carried into practice will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to a preferred embodiment illustrated in the accompanying figures, in which: Figure 1 shows a section through a laboratory sample of aluminium nitride coated cubic boron nitride grits in a supporting medium, and Figure 2 shows a graph of weight gain against time of coated and uncoated cubic boron nitride grits in an oxidation test. Cubic boron nitride is an extremely hard material almost equal to the hardness of diamond. Its use in the cutting tips of aerofoil blades in a gas turbine engine is documented. In order to maximise the efficiency of a rotor stage tip clearances are made small to minimise gas leakage over the blade tips. An abradable liner is installed on the inside of the gas duct encircling the blades which are provided with cutting tips. Because of its extreme hardness cubic boron nitride improves the efficiency of the blades in cutting a path into the abradable liner. Unfortunately, boron nitride is not temperature tolerant for long periods and it is found in practice that CBN grits in the cutting tips of turbine blades disappear after very few hours. The material simply oxidises progressively until eventually only empty holes are left in the supporting nickel alloy matrix. The invention provides that the cubic boron nitride grits are encased in a hard oxidation resistant metal alloy coating to preserve their cutting ability. Thus, although grits which are partly worn by a tip rub oxidise array over a period of time, other grit particles on which the protective coating remains intact survive to preserve tip cutting ability. Figure 1 shows a typical section through a coated grit sample. The supporting medium is indicated at 1, a cubic boron nitride grit particle is indicated at 2, and its protective layer of aluminium nitride at 3. The aluminium nitride coatings were deposited by a vapour deposition process. Cubic boron nitride grit of approximately 200 µm size was placed in a vessel the base of which was formed by a sintered quartz disc through which fluidising gas could be passed. The coating was then deposited by reacting aluminium chloride with ammonia at 900°C and, at a reduced pressure of about 20mb, forcing the reagent gases through the sintered disc to fluidise the grits. The process was continued to deposit an even coating of aluminium nitride to an even depth of 15-20 µm. The equation of the reaction is: Al Cl₃ + NH₃ → AlN + 3HCl The stability of the coated grit particles was tested by exposing test samples of coated and uncoated grit at high temperature in an oxidising atmosphere for extended periods. The results for each sample are shown superimposed in the graph of figure 2. In this figure percentage weight gain of a test sample is plotted in the ordinate direction against elapsed time as abscissa. Relative to the uncoated grit, the coated grit particles gained about four times less weight. Any one of a range of coating processes may be employed to deposit aluminium nitride on the surfaces of the grit particles; physical vapour deposition, physical vapour chemical deposition and sputter ion plating to mention just three. Some weight gain is inevitable due to oxidation of aluminium nitride at least. The reaction: 4AlN + 30₂ → 2Al₂O₃ + 2N₂ represents about 25% increase in coating weight as aluminium nitride is converted to alumina. On the other hand the conversion of boron nitride to boric oxide represented by the reaction: 4BN + 30₂ → 2B₂O₃ + 2N₂ results in approximately 40% weight increase.

Claims: An abrasive medium suitable for use in the abrasive tip of a turbine blade in a gas turbine engine comprising a dispersion of cubic boron nitride grit in which individual grits are coated with an oxidation resistant material, such as aluminium nitride. An abrasive medium as claimed in claim 1 wherein the oxidation resistant material has a hardness greater than 1250 Vickers. An abrasive medium as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the aluminium nitride coating is deposited to a depth of 15-20 µm. An abrasive medium as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the cubic boron nitride grit is dispersed in a metallic matrix. An abrasive medium as claimed in claim 4 wherein the metallic matrix comprises a nickel based alloy. A process for producing an abrasive medium as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5 comprises the step of vapour deposition of the oxidation resistant material in a fluidised bed reaction vessel. A process as claimed in claim 6 wherein the aluminium nitride is produced by the reaction: AlCl₃ + NH₃ → AlN + 3HCL. A process as claimed in claim 6 or 7 wherein the reaction is carried out at a temperature of 900°C and at a pressure of approximately 20mb. An abrasive tip for a gas turbine engine blade comprising abrasive medium as claimed in any of claims 1 to 5.

Inventors: ROWEN TERRY EDWARD, WILTSHIRE ALAN DOUGLAS, ROWEN, TERRY EDWARD, WILTSHIRE, ALAN DOUGLAS
Applicants: ROLLS ROYCE PLC, ROLLS-ROYCE PLC
Application year: 1992
Main classification: C09K3
IPC codes: C23C16, C04B41, C22C26, C23C30, B23B27, C09K3