Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Reducing the surface roughness of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) improves engine aerodynamic efficiency and mitigates CMAS adhesion, but turbine blades’ complex geometries demand low-cost, damage-mzitigated finishing. This work employed drag finishing with spherical ceramic media, establishing a discrete element method (DEM) model to quantify abrasive trajectories, contact forces, and energy distributions, combined with surface characterization to study abrasive effects on columnar YSZ and modified GZO topcoats. Results show roughness reduction is constrained by fracture toughness and columnar unit local fracture, leading to different decay rates and late-stage improvement between YSZ and GZO. Introducing smaller abrasives enhances packing density via void filling, strengthens microscale cutting, and reduces strong normal impacts, promoting surface uniformization and suppressing localized damage. These findings guide mechanistic understanding of drag finishing on multi-material TBCs, as well as abrasive grading design and process parameter optimization.
Source: Coatings
Authors: Huanyu Gu, Jinquan Dong, Qing He, Shixing Wang
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7128734526