Structural High Temperature Materials—A View with a Future

High temperature structural materials are used to contain or extract power from furnaces—the jet engine being considered as one of these. To improve efficiency of operation and life, materials have been strengthened by various metallurgical mechanisms and each has required a better production control. The parameters of casting have been understood and developed to the extent where the orientation of single crystal turbine blades is now controlled on a semi-automated production basis. High strength disc materials are made to precise structures and defect levels to optimize properties.

In the future this understanding will lead to more novel melting techniques, for cleaner material and even more precise and automated production control. The detailed material understanding gained from metallic materials gives an immediate opportunity to review the traditional approach to ceramics and to take a major and physics-based step to their more general acceptance.

This understanding and precision of manufacture with its associated automation gives an opportunity for the wider use of these high temperature materials in other areas such as modern diesels.