Development and characterization of advanced coatings for TiAl alloys

Titanium aluminides exhibit quite good mechanical properties even at elevated temperatures for aeronautic and automobile applications. Their low specific density (half of classical nickel based super alloys) makes them attractive for applications where the mass is a critical parameter, i.e. rotating pieces. At elevated temperatures they suffer of environmental embrittlement by hot gases, which deteriorates drastically their mechanical properties and still hampers their use to temperatures above 500°C in industrial applications. In this work, coatings involving reactive elements such Cr, Y combined with the halogen effect (fluorine surface treatment) have been developed using MO-CVD, CVD, PVD and HVOF techniques. The coatings were characterized as produced and after annealing by means of glancing XRD, GDEOS to analyze their structure, homogeneity and composition, respectively. The adhesion properties of the coatings were measured by using impact tests before and after oxidation. The oxidation behavior of the produced coatings was evaluated in the temperature range of the industrial use, e.g. 600-850°C whereas corrosion tests were conducted using Na2SO4-NaCl mixtures in dry and wet environments. After oxidation/corrosion test post-mortem analysis was carried out using SEM-EDX, EPMA analysis to investigate the oxide layer composition, structure and the corrosion products, respectively. Mechanical properties losses of coated specimens after oxidation/corrosion due to embrittlement were evaluated using 4 point bending test combined with acoustic emission. It was shown that some of the developed coatings reduce the embrittlement sensibility of these alloys.