Development of Additive Manufacturing Gas Turbine Hot Gas Path Vanes at Baker Hughes
Development of Additive Manufacturing Gas Turbine Hot Gas Path Vanes at Baker Hughes
Development of Additive Manufacturing Gas Turbine Hot Gas Path Vanes at Baker Hughes
ir
https://www.tarjomano.com https://www.tarjomano.com
GT2023-103043
1. INTRODUCTION
Additive Manufacturing has proved to be a very effective
technology when applied to parts or components that have a
sophisticated design and that, for the peculiarity of their
cooling (par. 3.1). Early failures drove an alloy and parameters Microcrack and porosity defects were managed by alloy
first optimization. chemical optimization in combination to AM process parameters
Having passed this first step of validation, a second as previously reported [1]. To validate the material properties in
validation phase was directly performed on a NovaLT® additive manufacturing components, a valuable approach is to
15
in “As built” and heat-treated conditions
10
5
The component shrinkage and deformation generated by the
0
residual stress release, can generate significative geometrical out Additive (as built) Additive (finished) Investment Casting
of tolerance. This is not only potentially impacting aerodynamic
performances but also the cooling of the vane because of out of
tolerance holes size and shape. For these reasons, a morphing FIGURE 10: Surface roughness comparison of GT vane in
process (i.e. iterating between real component dimensions and different finishing conditions
3D model) was applied to the original vane geometry allowing
to target the required dimension. 3.2 Lab scale validation
The first step of the validation process was aimed to
AM process typically generates high levels of surface evaluate, in a comparative way, the GT vane additive solution
roughness that results in fatigue life reduction of the versus the equivalent investment casting one. The most
components. For example, figure 09 shows the low cycle fatigue demanding load for a double airfoil GT vane in operation is the
results obtained on the same component in its “as built” and after thermal cycling at high temperature that drives low cycle fatigue
machining conditions. damage.
The target cycle test was set to 30 cycles. A sequence of
thermal cycles has been performed by instantaneously inserting
two components in an air furnace at 1000°C, removing them and
cooling down by forced air convection. Every 5 cycles the vanes
were inspected by means of DPI to detect cracks presence. The
figure 11 show the two components layout during forced cooling
and a typical temperature trend on vane platform during cooling.
The components were inspected also by means of subject to a periodic boroscopic inspection to check their
metallographic investigation. A detail is reported in figure 16: integrity. As example figure 18 reports the result of two
after service sound material condition is observed. boroscopic inspections.
3.5 Manufacturability and industrialization The part removal from the construction plate by EDM must
The industrialization phase of the AM GT vanes suggested be the first post-process to be performed before any other thermal
some key learnings. or surface treatment. Stress relief heat treatment and hot isostatic
Double or triplet vane design are more prone to macro pressing must be optimized to guarantee material integrity and
cracks formation, singlet vane design solution is preferrable reduce macro and micro cracking.
when possible. Surface treatment like shot peening are recommended for
The optimization of laser parameters directly on the most critical locations of the vane to avoid macrocracking.
components instead of samples mitigates the risk of internal Its optimization (Almen intensity, etc.) is key to avoid
material integrity. By this method it is possible to validate the component deformation due to reduced thickness of some of its
material properties using “custom” samples. areas or to avoid internal defects induced by the post-process.
Optimization of the fillet radii is more critical than other The roughness of the as-built vane may lead to a couple of
manufacturing processes (Figure 22 and 23) because of the AM undesired consequences. The aerodynamic performance of the
residual stresses. airfoil can be affected by the increased vorticity in the boundary
Cooling holes dimension shrinkage is a function of printing layer of the gas path and the cooling features (holes, etc.) may
orientation and features. It is important to apply a morphing change their consolidated performances. To target design
process to create a transfer function for small size holes requirements finishing post processes are needed. Two different
considering the manufacturing process capability. super-finishing processes were adopted: one for the external
Process induced residual stresses require an optimization of portion of the vanes and one for the internal cavity. Due to its
the printing orientation and the addition of overstock material in limited accessibility, the last one required a specific process
critical locations to avoid macro crack formation after heat development to achieve the required roughness values to avoid
treatment. any possible fatigue debit (see figure 24).
Trailing edge thickness should be kept at the maximum
possible value permitted by the range of tolerances for the
additive process, taking properly into account the effect of the
superfinishing post process. To find a balance is often not simple
because the airfoil trailing edge is one of the most critical areas
from structural point of view because of its limited thickness
required by aerodynamic performance.
90%
[2] Jin T., Zhou J., Wang X., Liu J., Sun X., Hu Z., Research
80% process on microstructural stability and mechanical behavior of
Heat
Heattreatment & Coating
treatment & coating
70%
advanced Ni-Based single crystal superalloys, Acta
60%
50%
Post
Postprocess
process &
&Machining
machining Metallurgica Sinica, Vol. 51, Issue 10 (1153-1162), 2015
40% Raw
Rawmaterial
materialproduction
production [3] Joseph N. Ghoussoub et Al., On the Influence of Alloy
30%
Composition on the Additive Manufacturability of Ni-Based
20%
10%
Superalloys, METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS
0% TRANSACTIONS A, VOLUME 53A, March 2022.
Investment casting
FIGURE 25: Comparison of Life Cycle Environmental Impact Additive MFG
[4] Salome Sanchez et al., Powder Bed Fusion of nickel-
for the production of a GT vane ring made by investment casting process based superalloys: A review, International Journal of Machine
versus additive manufacturing one Tools & Manufacture 165 (2021) 103729.
[5] Md.Shahwaz, Prekshya Nath, Indrani Sen, A critical
4. CONCLUSION review on the microstructure and mechanical properties
The development of high-pressure GT vanes by additive correlation of additively manufactured nickel-based superalloys,
manufacturing has required and important effort in Baker Journal of Alloys and Compounds 907 (2022) 164530.
Hughes along several years and a synergic approach through the [6] Basak A., Additive Manufacturing of High-Gamma
leverage of multiple competencies in material science, Prime Nickel-Based Superalloys through Selective Laser
manufacturing and testing engineering. The program developed Melting (SLM), Materials Science, 2019.
a key knowledge that can be summarized as follows. [7] Serra A., Fantaccione L., Fantozzi F., Bartocci P., Buia
When dealing with nickel-based superalloys having a high G., Gandini S., Effects on sustainability by Redesign of a 1° stage
content of gamma prime, the chemistry and the heat treatment gas turbine nozzle ring from Investment Casting to Additive
must be optimized for the additive process. This is the main Manufacturing: A Life Cycle Environmental Impact comparison,
reason why we decided to patent an original alloy, namely the ASME TURBOEXPO paper GT2022-78256, 2022
NP110, and develop specific process parameters for it.
The development of the alloy and of the additive process
parameters cannot be in series but must proceed in parallel with
multiple improvement iterations. The process parameters that are
allowed for an alloy like the NP110 typically seat in a narrow
window [1].
All the validation tests, also at lab scale, must be as much as
possible representative of the potential failure mode in field to
quickly address the weakness of the alloy and of the process.
The large amount of experience collected during the tests of
the vanes installed in the validation and production engines has
proven the validity of the additive manufacturing as a solid
technology for this challenging class of alloys.
The use of AM for high pressure gas turbine vanes is today
a valid alternative to the more consolidated investment casting
process. It is especially true for not large production series and
when a fast re-design is needed; it has also the additional benefit
to protect the supply chain from uncontrollable instabilities and
to address the CO2 reduction targets.