New Delhi: A NASA scientist has expressed a keen interest in a new thermal spray coating technology used for gas turbine engine in spacecraft which was developed by Rajasthan-based researcher Dr Satish Tailor.
James L Smialek, the NASA scientist, wrote an email to Dr Tailor after the research was published in the journal Ceramics International and Thermal Spray Bulletin, said SC Modi, the chairman of a Jodhpur-based Metallizing Equipment Company (MEC).
Dr Tailor was working at MEC as a chief scientist (Research and Development) when he developed the controlled segmented Yttria-Stabilised Zirconia (YSZ)-Plasma sprayed coating technology.
According to Dr Tailor, the thermal spray coating technology could reduce the thermal spray coating cost by almost 50 percent.
“In simple language, vertical cracks (segmentation) in the coating are beneficial for gas turbine engine application used in spacecraft,” Dr Tailor said.
“At present, researchers are developing such cracks through very expensive processes (in several crores) and cracks are generated during the coating deposition process, and crack generation is not controllable,” he said.
Dr Tailor said he has shared his research papers with the NASA scientist who had written him an email regarding this. Scientists working at the country’s leading research organisations — the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) — are equally impressed with the new technology.
Dr RM Mohanty, the chief scientist at the CSIR headquarters in New Delhi, said that indeed the outcome of the reported R&D presents an inexpensive solution for the superior survival of current YSZ thermal barrier coatings produced by atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) technique, and has a potential of wider industrial/strategic acceptability.
DRDO scientist Dr RK Satpathy said if it can be industrially adopted to make a strain-tolerant coating then it will definitely be more economical.
(With PTI inputs)
