Aeroengines are the heart of airplanes. At present, the high-pressure compressor and low-pressure turbine blades of turbofan engines are almost all made of nickel-based alloy materials. However, with the continuous improvement of engine performance, this material has developed to the limit and it is difficult to make new breakthroughs.
In recent years, China's new titanium-aluminum alloy materials have sprung up. They have the advantages of low density, high temperature resistance, and high elastic modulus. They are extremely suitable for manufacturing high-pressure compressor and low-pressure turbine blades, but the high processing difficulty has led to slow progress in practical application.
However, ZKYJ Metal Research Institute has developed a titanium aluminum alloy + yttrium oxide ceramic material integrated casting forming process, and successfully developed a blade that can withstand a high temperature of 900 degrees, which belongs to the world's advanced level. It is estimated that when the high-pressure compressor and low-pressure turbine are equipped with new titanium-aluminum alloy blades, the overall weight is expected to be reduced by 200 kg, which greatly increases the thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces fuel consumption. In the future, the thrust of the new aero engine will increase by 2 times. In 2019, the team of Professor Chen Guang from Nanjing University of Science and Technology also announced that it has overcome the difficulty of manufacturing titanium-aluminum single crystal alloy blades, and the service life is 1-2 orders of magnitude longer than similar products in the United States.