superdog
Junior Member
The short answer: Yes. This is not only possible, but could be leaps and bounds better than current TiAl LPT solutions.
If you read the original paper you will see that they directly compared their product to the Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb(4822) alloy, which is the exact alloy GE used to make LPT blades on their GEnx Engines (for Boeing 787 and 747-8). These Chinese scientists claimed that their product's creep resistance (resistance to permanent deformation under high strain high temperature and long hours) is 66-68 times better than the 4822 alloy, and service temperature could be around 200C higher, and yet they made it without relying on high-cost seeding methods, so production cost could be kept low.
If we believe what they claimed (it's published on Nature Materials, so we probably should), the implication is that this material is superior than what's being used on the newest GEnx engines. I don't know what the max turbine inlet temp for GEnx engines are, I've heard up to 3000F/1650C but can't confirm. Anyway you get the picture, if GEnx can use 4822 alloy to make LPT, than this new material has the potential to be put on even higher temperature engines, probably 200 degrees higher, and it could replace all LPT as well as HPC blades. The challenge remains at the HPT where they may still need to use Ni-based single crystal materials, but the weight of that part alone is relatively small anyway. Using TiAl for LPT and HPC would represent significant weight reduction, using advanced TiAl with higher yield strength, creep and temp resistance could mean even more weight reduction (less cooling ducts and structural support), and the engine could burn hotter. The result is greater thrust to weight ratio.
Note: the main advantage of TiAl versus Ni-based superalloy is not on mechanical strength, but on weight reduction. TiAl is less than half the weight of Ni-based superalloy per volume, so it is a pretty big weight reduction. CMC is even lighter although not by much (CMC vs TiAl vs Ni-based = 3 vs 4 vs 9 g/cm^3), and it suffers more problems with mechanical strength, so its usage on moving parts are more limited than TiAl despite being lighter and more heat tolerant. Carbon composite materials are the lightest but not that heat resistant, so they're used on cooler parts such as LPC and casing.
Also, don't expect this to make its way onto WS-10/15/20 anytime soon, it will take quite some years for any lab tech to get into production engines. The upgrade versions of the above-mentioned engines or the CJ-1000/2000 may have a chance. Of course, this is to assume that they didn't hide this for years before publishing.
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