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Tensile stress and creep in thermally grown oxide

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 349–351 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Structural components that operate at high temperatures (for example, turbine blades) rely on thermally grown oxide (TGO), commonly alumina, for corrosion protection. Strains that develop in TGOs during operation can reduce the protectiveness of the TGO1. However, the occurrence of growth strains in TGOs, and mechanisms that cause them, are poorly understood. It is accepted that compressive strains can develop as oxygen and metal atoms meet to form new growth within constrained oxide2,3. More controversial is the experimental finding that large tensile stresses, close to 1 GPa, develop during isothermal growth conditions in alumina TGO formed on a FeCrAlY alloy4. Using a novel technique5 based on synchrotron radiation, we have confirmed these previous results, and show that the tensile strain develops as the early oxide, (Fe,Cr,Al)2O3, converts to α-Al2O3 during the growth process. This allows us to model the strain behaviour by including creep and this diffusion-controlled phase change.

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Figure 1: Evolution of (Fe,Cr,Al)2O3 (haematite) to α-Al2O3 (corundum).
Figure 2: Change of lattice spacing with oxidation time.
Figure 3: Comparison between measured and modelled strain levels.
Figure 4: Schematic of the experimental setup.

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Acknowledgements

This research was sponsored by the US Department of Energy, BES, Materials Science, under contract Nos W-31-109-ENG-38 and DE-AC03-76SF00098.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave., Argonne, Illinois, 60439, USA

    Boyd W. Veal & Arvydas P. Paulikas

  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, 94530, USA

    Peggy Y. Hou

Authors
  1. Boyd W. Veal
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  2. Arvydas P. Paulikas
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  3. Peggy Y. Hou
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Correspondence to Boyd W. Veal.

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Veal, B., Paulikas, A. & Hou, P. Tensile stress and creep in thermally grown oxide. Nature Mater 5, 349–351 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1626

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