Ionenstrahlbasierte Oberflächenmodifizierung von TiAl-Werkstoffen

Titanium aluminide (TiAl) alloys are attractive lightweight materials for medium-temperature (500°-750°C) structural applications including components such as jet engine and industrial gas turbine blades, turbocharger rotors and automotive engine valves. However, envisaged service temperatures for future advanced applications will have to be in the range of 750° to 1000°C, over which these alloys suffer from both oxidation and oxygen embrittlement. Therefore, development of surface-engineering techniques for preventing high-temperature environmental damage is critical in exploiting the advantages of TiAl alloys to their fullest extent.

Two efficient approaches to protecting candidate TiAl alloys from high-temperature (>750°C) environmental degradation have been developed at HZDR. The first technique involves a single step, namely treating TiAl alloy components directly by plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) of fluorine using a mixture of difluoromethane and argon (CH2F2 + 25% Ar) as the precursor gas. The oxidation performance of the fluorine-implanted alloys has been evaluated by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) over the temperature range of 750° to 1050°C under conditions of both isothermal and thermal cyclic oxidation in air, and for times as long as 6000 h. This type of surface modification has been shown to produce a stable, adherent and highly protective alumina scale. The second technique involves the fabrication of a durable protective coating in a two-step process, namely formation of a thin aluminum-rich TiAl layer (Ti-60Al) by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) employing a mixture of inorganic precursors, followed by PIII of fluorine. Subsequent long-term oxidation exposures to air at 900°C of a GE 4822 alloy (Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb; alloy composition qualified for aerospace applications) have shown that the coating so developed is able to successfully prevent oxidation damage to the base material while maintaining up to 90% of its initial mechanical properties (strength and ductility).