An Assessment of the Use of Ceramics in Heat Engines

Abstract
The starting point for this assessment was the failure of the DARPA/ Navy/Garrett Ceramic Turbine Program to meet the 50 hour engine demonstration goal. Of particular pertinence to this assessment is that the rotating components appear to have been successful, but that this success and its extent were hidden by static component failure leading to complete engine failure. The basic assessment of ceramics in heat engines is that extensive application is feasible and extremely important. Feasibility is shown by the success of various components in the different demonstration programs which were often not totally successful because of the ambitious, complex nature of these programs. The importance of ceramics for heat engines is demonstrated by the impact of ceramic usage on consumption of both fuel and strategic metals, as well as by its potential impact on large industrial sectors in the United States and the serious economic competition with Europe and especially Japan. The immediate need from the Garrett program is to determine the extent of success of ceramic bladed metal rotors. This has potential practical payoff since in some applications ceramic blades may be used as the only ceramic components in a metal engine with over 50% of the benefit of using ceramics as both blades and vanes. However, since ceramic static hardware has an important contribution to make, solutions to the static hardware problems, much of which appears to be due to contact stresses between ceramic components, must be sought.

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