(State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xi‘an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China)
Gas turbine is the key technical equipment in the clean and efficient thermal power energy system, which is of great significance to ensure national energy security and national defense security. As the main technical parameter of gas turbine, the turbine inlet temperature has reached 1500~1600 ℃, which poses a severe challenge to the design and manufacture of high temperature blade of gas turbine. Therefore, a variety of technologies were used to improve the performance of blades, such as the directional/single crystal forming technology of superalloy blade, film cooling technology and thermal barrier coating (TBC) technology. Moreover, the TBC technology has attracted great attention due to low cost and a remarkable thermal insulation effect. However, sintering occurs in the ceramic insulation layer during the long-term service of TBC system in high temperature environment, which affects the thermal barrier effect and safety of the coating. Therefore, restraining the sintering phenomenon is the key technology to improve the service stability and life of TBC. Based on the above background, the research progress on the TBC sintering was introduced on emphasis, including the sintering phenomenon and characterization, mechanics models for sintering, structure design of sintering resistant TBC and the sintering resistance evaluation. Finally, the future prospect and development directions of TBC technology were forecasted.