Abstract Scope |
It has been over ninety years since Bedford and Pilling and Merica added small amounts of titanium and aluminum to the by then well-known “80/20” nickel-chromium alloy to create nickel-based superalloys, enabling advancements in the efficiencies of gas turbines and other applications that subject components to high temperatures and corrosive environments. In that time, nickel-based superalloys have continuously improved their high temperature mechanical and environmental properties through improved chemistry, processing, and coatings. Today, GE Aviation employs nickel-based superalloys in a wide variety of applications across our engines for both rotating and structure components, but as operating temperatures continue to climb, other material systems have begun to show promise, including intermetallic-based materials and ceramic matrix composites. Additionally, the tools used to develop these next generation alloys systems have advanced from simple designed experiments to combinatorial thermodynamic and kinetic modeling and machine learning techniques to accelerate the process. |