GE Global Research

______________________________________________________________

Applying Abradable Seals to

Industrial Gas Turbines

R.E. Chupp, F. Ghasripoor, G.D. Moore,

L.S. Kalv and J.R. Johnston

2002GRC193, July 2002

Class 1

Technical Information Series

Copyright © 2002 General Electric Company. All rights reserved.
 GE Global Research

Technical Report Abstract Page

Title Applying Abradable Seals to Industrial Gas Turbines

Author(s) R.E. Chupp Phone (518)387-7550

F. Ghasripoor 8*833-7550
G.D. Moore*
L.S. Kalv*
R. Johnston*

Component Energy and Propulsion Technology Labs

Report
Number 2002GRC193 Date July 2002

Number
of Pages 8 Class 1

Key Words seals, abradable seals, abradables, leakage, turbines, gas turbines, tip clearance, coatings,
honeycomb, MCrAlY material

Improving dynamic sealing between rotating and stationary parts in industrial turbines can significantly
increase unit performance. One type of improved sealing being incorporated into turbines is abradable
seals to reduce the blade-tip clearances. An abradable material is placed on the stationary shroud or
casing opposite the rotating blade tips to reduce clearances with minimum risk to the turbine components
during rubs. Also, applying an abradable material further reduces effective clearances for often-
encountered casing out of roundness and rotor lateral movement. A thermally sprayed coating is applied
to stage 1 E-Class gas turbine shrouds to reduce tip clearances and improve turbine performances up to
0.8%. Honeycomb is used as an abradable seal in the stage 2 and/or 3 of E-Class turbines with
performance benefits up to 0.6%. Efforts are continuing to develop abradable materials for these turbine
locations with increased service life.

Manuscript received July 17, 2002

*GE Power Systems, Atlanta, GA 30339

 AIAA 2002-3795

APPLYING ABRADABLE SEALS TO INDUSTRIAL GAS TURBINES

Raymond E. Chupp, Farshad Ghasripoor
General Electric Global Research
Niskayuna, NY 12309
Gerald D. Moore, Lisa S. Kalv, J. Robert Johnston
General Electric Power Systems
Atlanta, GA 30339

ABSTRACT Abradable seals are one type of improved sealing being

Improving dynamic sealing between rotating and
stationary parts in industrial turbines can significantly
increase unit performance. One type of improved
sealing being incorporated into turbines is abradable
seals to reduce the blade-tip clearances. An abradable
material is placed on the stationary shroud or casing
opposite the rotating blade tips to reduce clearances with
minimum risk to the turbine components during rubs.
Also, applying an abradable material further reduces
effective clearances for often-encountered casing out of
roundness and rotor lateral movement. A thermally
sprayed coating is applied to stage 1 E-Class gas turbine
shrouds to reduce tip clearances and improve turbine
performances up to 0.8%. Honeycomb is used as an
abradable seal in the stage 2 and/or 3 of E-Class turbines
with performance benefits up to 0.6%. Efforts are
continuing to develop abradable materials for these
turbine locations with increased service life.
Introduction
developed for compressor and turbine blade-tip, and
labyrinth seal locations in industrial turbines. Figure 1
shows a schematic of where the abradable materials are
placed. As the name suggests, an abradable material is
worn-in by the rotating blade during service. These
materials applied to the casings or shrouds of gas and
steam turbines decrease clearances to levels difficult to
achieve by mechanical means. Abradable seals are
gaining appeal in gas turbines as a relatively simple
means to reduce gas-path clearances in both the
compressor and turbine. They offer clearance
reductions at relatively low costs and minor engineering
implications for the service fleet. Abradable seals have
been in use in aviation gas turbines since late
1960’s/early-1970’s.3 However, they have been used
less in land based gas turbines for power generation,
primarily because of the long cycle times the materials
are in service. With increasing fuel prices and advances
in materials to allow extended service periods, abradable
seals are gaining popularity within the power generation
industry.

There are increasing demands to improve efficiency and

power output of new and existing industrial turbines. Inner
This demand has led to extensive efforts to improve the
performance of the various turbine components.
Improvements in sealing between rotating and stationary
parts in industrial gas and steam turbines can Abradable
significantly reduce parasitic leakages, thereby,
Possible tip
improving performance in both reduced heat rate
treatment
(increased efficiency) and increased power output.1
Performance gains in GE gas turbines range for each
sealing location from 0.2 to 0.6% reduction in heat rate,
Comp. blade or
and 0.3 to 1% increase in power output.2 ⋅
turbine bucket

Fig. 1 Schematic of abradable material for blade tip

sealing
⋅
Copyright © 2002 by the General Electric Company.
Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics Inc., with permission.

1
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

ABRADABLE SEAL LOCATIONS
Fig. 2 Schematic of E-Class industrial gas turbine showing abradable blade tip sealing focus locations
This paper addresses development of abradable seals for
industrial gas turbines. Figure 2 shows the key focus
locations for applying abradable seals, i.e., at the
compressor and turbine blade tips. The focus of this
paper is to describe development for the turbine section
of E class gas turbines. The paper includes a general
discussion of abradable seals followed by descriptions
of the abradable development for the unshrouded first
turbine stage and shrouded second and third stages of
GE E-Class gas turbines.
Abradable Seals
Abradable seal materials are used to decrease the
operating blade tip clearances. Without abradable seals,
the cold clearances between blade (or “bucket”) tips and
shrouds must be large enough to prevent significant
contact during operation. Use of abradable seals allows
the cold build clearances to be reduced with the
assurance that if contact occurs, the sacrificial part will
be the abradable material and not the blade or bucket
tips. Also, abradable seals allow further tightening of
effective clearances with commonly encountered shroud
or casing out-of-roundness or lateral movement of the
rotor relative to the casing shroud.4 For these situations,
the shroud material is worn away locally rather than
wearing all the rotor blade tips during interference.
2
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Stage 1 Stages 2 & 3
Abradable seals can be classified according to their
temperature capability:5
! Low temperature, usually for LP compressors—
ambient to 400°C (750°F)
! Mid-range for LP & HP Compressors—ambient to
760°C (1400°F)
! High temperature for HP turbines—760°C (1400°F)
to 1150°C (2100°F).
Alternative, abradable seals can be also characterized by
method of application:6
! Castings for polymer based abradable materials
! Brazing or diffusion bonding for honeycomb and/or
fiber metals (porous fiber metal structures).
! Thermal spray coatings for a large range of
powdered composite materials.
The mechanisms of wearing or cutting of abradable
materials have been investigated using conventional
tribometers7 or specially designed test rigs.8,9 However
due to the high relative speeds, >100 m/sec (>330
ft/sec), between the abradable seal and the rotating blade
tip surface, the mechanisms of wear/cutting vary
considerably from low speed tribology normally
associated with machining operations. This difference is
shown schematically in Fig. 3. At high speeds, the
removal/cutting of thermal spray type abradable
coatings is done by release of small particle debris, i.e.,
<0.1 mm

Fig. 3 Rub mechanisms associated with abradable
material removal.
(<0.004 in). In contrast to conventional (low speed)
cutting in machine tools, the particle debris released in
abradable materials is ejected at the rear of the moving
blade.4 This therefore partly sets the criteria for the
design of such materials. It also sets a limiting design
criterion for blade-tip thickness. Generally, a cutting
element (blade-tip) thickness less than 1.3 mm (0.05 in)
allows release of the particles from the coating. Thicker
tips tend to entrap the loose particles between the blade
and the abradable material. As a result, special
considerations have to be given to the design of the
materials to allow for the cutting mechanisms (for
example, altering the base material particle morphology
and size).
Certain abradable materials rely more on densification
(compaction) of the structure than on particle debris
removal.10 Material compaction limits the functional
depth of the abradable material since the compacted
material will increase the wear of the rotating blade tips
as the porosity is reduced. These type of seal materials
include some of the thermal spray coatings and porous
metal fiber structures (fiber metals).
Honeycombs are another type of abradable made of
oxidation resistant materials. Their abradability relies on
the collapse of the cellular structure as the rails rub
against them. At low incursion speeds, the cell walls are
partly deformed but worn away to a large extent. The
ratio of deformation to wear increases as the cell walls
are made thicker. At higher incursion speeds,
deformation becomes the predominant feature leading to
cell wall rupture. Increasing operating temperatures will
also increase the deformation component during rubs as
the honeycomb material softens.
3
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Designing Abradable Materials
Abradable seals are low strength structures that wear
without damaging the mating blade tips. Consequently,
they are also susceptible to gas and solid particle
erosion. Abradable structures intended for use in harsh
temperatures occurring in gas turbines can also be prone
to oxidation because of the inherent material porosity.
These conflicting properties need to be accounted for in
designing abradable seals. Abradable seals then have to
be considered as a complete tribological system that
incorporates:
• Relative motions and depth of cut — blade-tip speed
and incursion rate (Fig. 4 shows the relative radial
motion of the blade tip vs. the shroud for a
representative operating cycle. The ideal abradable
thickness is sufficient for at least some rubbing
around the entire circumference. The running
clearances would then be the difference between the
location of the maximum closure (pinch point) and
steady state as identified in Fig. 4.)
• Environment temperature, fluid medium and
contaminants
• Cutting element geometry and material — blade-tip
thickness, shrouded or unshrouded blades
• Counter element — abradable seal material and
structure. Manufacturing processes as well as
microstructural consistency of abradable seals can
have a profound effect on their properties.11,12
Properly designing an abradable system for a given
application makes it unique to that particular
application. Despite the availability of many off-the-
shelf materials, abradable seals have to be modified or
redesigned in many applications to meet the design
constraints. In the process of developing abradable
seals, several tests are performed. Figure 5 shows the
rub rig used to evaluate abradability of candidate
abradable materials for simulated incursion rates,
rotational speeds, and temperatures. Other development
tests and evaluations include oxidation, thermal shock,
erosion, tensile strength, and porosity determined from
image analyses.
Typical Transient Radial Closure Cycle

Fig. 4 Representative transient radial relative movement between the shroud and blade tip.

Fig. 5 Abradable rub rig used to evaluate abradability of candidate materials.

4
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
 E Class Stage 1 Turbine Abradable Seals treatments to the blade tips. Figure 7 shows a GT50
coating sample and test blade tip after rub testing at
The first stage turbine blades of E-class machines are Sulzer Innotec under simulated turbine operating
unshrouded as shown in Fig. 2. The temperatures of conditions. The material was cut well by the simulated
the stationary shroud surface, upon which the bare blade tip without any tip wear. Figure 8 shows a
abradable is placed, lie at the upper end of mid- schematic of a stage 1 shroud block on which the
temperature abradable materials described previously. GT50 coating is applied. Figure 9 is a photo of coated
In general for mid-temperature applications, Ni or Co shroud blocks and Fig. 10 depicts the coated blocks as
based alloy powders are commonly used as the basis of installed in an engine.
the abradable seal matrix. Other phases are added to
the base metal powder to make the material abradable.
These added phases are generally polymeric materials
that are used as fugitive elements to generate coating
porosity. In addition, other phases maybe included to
act as release agents.9,13
Figure 6 displays a wear map of a mid-temperature
coating system abraded at 500°C (930°F) using
titanium blades.12 The map shows the wear
mechanism domains vs. blade-tip velocity and
incursion rate. The arrows indicate the movement of
the wear regime boundaries as the polyester level
increases. As polyester content and thus porosity
increases, cutting becomes increasingly predominant
mechanism over the entire range of the speeds and
incursion rates.

Fig. 7 Wear test sample of GT50 abradable

material used for Stage 1 shrouds.

Fig. 6 Wear map for MCrAlY based abradable

coatings vs. Ti blades

The current abradable material being used for E-Class

Stage 1 shrouds is GT50 coating. This is a MCrAlY Fig. 8 Schematic of Stage 1 shroud block with
type material used for oxidation protection with abradable material placed on the surface opposite
porosity added to make it abradable without any the rotating blade tips.

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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Fig. 9 Photo of Stage 1 shroud blocks with GT50
abradable coating applied; features shown in center
shroud are for instrumentation and external access.
Fig. 10 Photo of Stage 1 shroud blocks installed in
a turbine
The stage 1 abradable seal market targets include
Frame 3/2H/J, 5/1N/P, P N/T, R, R N/T, 5/2A-D, 6B,
7EA, and 9E machines during hot gas path and major
inspections. Using abradable stage 1 shrouds gives
incremental output and heat rate improvements. In
addition, as the gas turbine ages the overall clearance
between the stage 1 blade and stage 1 shroud will
increase less with the abradable coating due to
numerous transient rubs, blade tip erosion, rotor
alignment variations, and overall stator casing
deflection. Abradable coatings to reduce clearances
are more likely to show higher incremental benefits on
older gas turbines because of these conditions. The
abradable coating is primarily applied to new
replacement shrouds. Shrouds with minimal (less than
24,000 hours) operating hours can also be coated.
6
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The projected benefits of the stage 1 abradable coating
in output and improved heat rate are as follows:
! 3/2 H/J units: +0.80% output, -0.40% heat rate
! 5/1N/P, P N/T
R, R N/T units: +0.80% output, -0.40% heat rate
! 5/2 A-D units: +0.80% output, -0.40% heat rate
! 61A/B units: +0.70% output, -0.70% heat rate
! 7A-EA units: +0.50% output, -0.50% heat rate
! 9B/E units: +0.40% output, -0.40% heat rate
To date, the GT50 abradable coating has been applied
to the following number of units:
Stage 1 Shroud
Abradable Coating
Frame 3 1
Frame 5 27
Frame 6 85
Frame 7 69
Frame 9 17
Total 198
It should be noted that the GT50 abradable coating
oxidizes with time, so the output and heat rate
incremental benefit is reduced over time. Laboratory
and field tests are in progress to quantify the abradable
coating duration. Efforts continue to develop more
oxidation resistant coatings to extend the duration of
the performance benefits.
E Class Stage 2 and 3
Turbine Shroud Abradable Seals
The second and third stage blades of E class turbines
are shrouded as shown schematically in Fig. 11. The
abradable material used for these stages is an open-cell
honeycomb. Honeycomb seal designs have been used
in aircraft engines for a number of years. The blade tip
knives (called rails) have cutter teeth machined into
them to enhance cutting. As discussed earlier, the
wear mechanism for honeycomb is deformation of the
thin walls and wear. This can be seen in Fig. 12 of a
rub test sample tested with both simulated relative
radial and axial movements. In this test, a semi-
continuous knife is run against the honeycomb to
simulate blade tip shroud rails. No knife tip wear was
seen in this rub test.
As shown in Fig, 13, the honeycomb is installed as
strips of material. The honeycomb is made of a high-
temperature, oxidation resistant alloy that is brazed
between the teeth on the casing shrouds. The blade tip
rails with cutter teeth on the leading edge cut the
honeycomb material away during transients. This
produces steady-state running clearances that are no
larger than the difference between the steady state and
the transient clearances (see Fig. 4). The effective
Fig. 11 Schematic of Stage 2 and 3 shroud blocks
showing location of honeycomb abradable material
Fig. 12 Photo of honeycomb rub test sample
showing good wear during simulated radial and
axial relative movement
clearance is actually tighter than the absolute clearance
since the resulting groove in the honeycomb provides a
tighter labyrinth seal than could be obtained with solid
materials. Honeycomb shrouds also reduce
performance degradation by maintaining tighter
clearances throughout the life of the shroud.
Since 1996, many of the new E-Class gas turbines
have been manufactured with cutter teeth cast into the
blade tip rails to cut the honeycomb if present. A
process has been developed to weld cutter teeth onto
existing blades. The full row of blades does not need
to be modified. As a minimum, 50% of the blades in a
given row need cutter teeth to ensure proper
performance of the honeycomb material.
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Fig. 13 Photos of a typical Stage 2/3 shroud block
and blade tip rail with cutter tooth.
The use of honeycomb in stages 2 and 3 provides the
following estimated performance gains:
! Stage 2 Honeycomb Shrouds
o 3/2H/J units: +0.40% output, -0.40% heat rate
o 5/1N/P, P N/T,
R, R N/T1 units: +0.40% output, -0.40% heat rate
o 5/2A-D units: +0.40% output, -0.40% heat rate
o 61A/B units: +0.35% output, -0.35% heat rate
o 71A-EA units: +0.35% output, -0.35% heat rate
o 91B/E units: +0.35% output, -0.35% heat rate
! Stage 3 Honeycomb Shrouds
o 61A/B units: +0.25% output, -0.25% heat rate
o 71A-EA units: +0.15% output, -0.15% heat rate
o 91B/E units: +0.15% output, -0.15% heat rate
The benefits listed are initial output or heat rate
improvements. As for the stage 1, the overall
clearance between the blade tip and shroud will
increase less with time due to numerous transient rubs,
blade tip erosion, rotor alignment variations, and
overall stator casing deflection than would be the case
with traditional sealing methods. Honeycomb if
applied to the second or third stage shroud and used
with cutter teeth on the blade tips can reduce
clearances and will likely show higher incremental
benefits on older gas turbines because of these
conditions.
To date, the honeycomb has been applied to shrouds of
the following number of units:
Stage 2 Stage 3
HC Shrouds HC Shrouds
Frame 5 17 N/A
Frame 6 341 306
Frame 7 444 423
Frame 9 65 63
Total 867 792
Conclusions
Implementation of abradable seals into the turbine
section of E-Class industrial gas turbines has
progressed well over the last few years. Abradable
seals offer an effective means of improving turbine
performance through reduced clearances. Such seals
are being applied to the casings and shrouds of gas
turbines to decrease the blade-tip clearances beyond
what is practical by mechanical means. Development
work has been carried out to select abradable materials
to best meet the design requirements. The GT50
abradable coating has been applied to nearly 200 E-
Class stage 1 turbines with performance benefits up to
0.8%. Honeycomb has been incorporated as an
abradable seal structure in stages 2 and/or 3 for nearly
900 E-Class gas turbines with combined performance
benefits up to 0.6% for the two stages. Efforts are
continuing to develop abradable materials for these
turbine locations with increased service life.
Acknowledgments
The abradable sealing development work summarized
in this paper was carried out primarily at GE Global
Research and GE Power Systems, who sponsored the
work. The authors would like to acknowledge the
contributions of the many GE people who have been
involved in various aspects of developing and applying
abradables in gas turbines: Brian Arness, Dalero
Berkeley, Matt Brokaw, Jim Clare, Saim Dinc, Sue
Drake, Massimo Giannozzi, Bob Hoeft, James
Hopkins, Y.C. Lau, Murtuza Lokhandwalla, Paul
Marks, Chek Ng, Surinder Pabla, Kevin Seitzer, Bert
Stuck, and Steve Wassynger.
References
1) “GE Advanced Sealing Technologies,” GE
Brochure, 2000.
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
2) Chupp, R. E., Aksit, M. F., Ghasripoor, F.,
Turnquist, N. A., Demiroglu, M., “Advanced
Seals for Industrial Turbine Applications,” AIAA
Paper 2001-3626, July 2001.
3) Morrell, P., Betridge, D., Greaves, M., Dorfman,
M., Russo, L., Britton, C., and Harrison. K., “A
New Aluminium-Silicon/Boron Nitride Powder
for Clearance Control Application,” ITSC 98,
Nice, France, 1998.
4) Schmid, R., “New high temperature abradables for
gas turbines,” Dissertation, Swiss Federal Inst. Of
Technology, Zurich, 1997 (contains extensive list
of abradable seal references).
5) Ghasripoor, F., Schmid, R., and Drofman. M.,
“Abradables Improve Gas Turbine Efficiency,”
Journal of the Inst. of Materials, Vol. 5, No. 6,
June 1997.
6) Schmid, R. K., Ghasripoor, F., Dorfman, M., and
Wei. X., “An Overview of Compressor
Abradables,” ITSC 2000, Montreal, Canada, 2000.
7) Guilemany, J. M., Navarro, J., Lorenzana, C.,
Vizcanio, S., and Miguel, J., M., “Tribological
Behaviour of Abradable Coatings Obtained by
Atmospheric Plasma Spraying (APS),” Thermal
Spray 2001, Singapore, May 2001.
8) Ghasripoor, F., Schmid, R. K., Dorfman, M., and
Russo, L., “A Review of Clearance Control Wear
Mechanisms for Low Temperature Aluminum
Silicon Alloys,” ITSC 98, Nice. France, 1998.
9) Nava, Y., Mutasim, Z., and Coe, M., “Abradable
Coatings for Low-Temperature Applications,”
Thermal Spray 2001, Singapore, May 2001.
10) Borel, M. O., Nicoll, A. R., Schlaepfer, H. W., and
Schmid, R. K., “Wear Mechanisms Occurring in
Abradable Seals of Gas Turbines,” Surface
Coating Technology, 1989, pp. 117-126.
11) Chappel, D., Vo, L., and Howe, H., “Gas Path
Blade Tip Seals: Abradable Seal Material Testing
at Utility Gas and Steam Turbine Operating
Conditions,” ASME Paper 2001-GT-0583, June
2001 (contains extensive list of abradable seal
references).
12) Wei, X., Mallon, J. R., Correa, L. F., M. Dorfman,
M., and Ghasripoor, F., “Microstructure and
Property Control of CoNiCrAlY Based Abradable
Coatings for Optimal Performance,” ITSC 2000,
Montreal, Canada, 2000.
13) Ghasripoor, F., Schmid, R., Dorfman, D., and
Wei, X., “Optimizing the Performance of Plasma
Control Coatings up to 850C,” Surface
Modification Technologies XII, Rosemont, IL,
1998
R.E. Chupp Applying Abradable Seals to Industrial Gas Turbines 2002GRC193
F. Ghasripoor July 2002
G.D. Moore
L.S. Kalv
J.R. Johnston