High precison Erosion mapping

STS has developed an intelligent coating imaging system which enables maintenance engineers to quickly assess damage to the surface in high resolution with wide viewing angles. This technology can be applied in areas where the thickness of a protection layer is critical for example in manufacturing processes or in gas turbines.

Immediate assessment of critical erosion thanks to intelligent colour detection imaging

The coating is layered so that it appears to have different colours at different thicknesses, which enables the erosion detection. It allows localisation and quantification of the areas that reached critical erosion in no time, even in dark environments where no other light source is available eg. inside processing reactors or turbines.

The evaluation can be done on the engine or in other machinery where optical access is difficult using borescope like devices. This will be cost effective as engine parts can be checked without dismantling the engine.

The coating is based on industrial thermal barrier coating architecture and hence is very robust in challenging high temperature environments.

Tuneable

Erosion measuring sensor coatings can be tailored to customer specific needs eg critical thickness or different layer systems.

High precision

The new method applied by STS enables high precision erosion measurements down to micrometre scale, but with large viewing angles so that large parts of a component can be monitored.  This technique will enable the degradation of the coating to be monitored and erosion patterns mapped in-situ.