The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $16 million in funds to 17 projects in support of the development of ultra-high temperature materials for gas turbines.
DOE said Wednesday that it seeks to build materials that will operate at 1800 ºC with coatings and coolings or at 1300 ºC in a stand-alone material test environment as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s Ultrahigh Temperature Impervious Materials Advancing Turbine Efficiency program.
Selected teams under the first phase of the initiative will demonstrate proofs of concept and will undergo a technical review to validate their eligibility for Phase 2. They will also devise manufacturing methods to help turbine blades operate within extreme operating environments.
West Virginia University, one of the teams, was allocated $700K to build ultra-high temperature refractory complex concentrated alloys-based composites while Pennsylvania State University, another awardee, was given $1.2M to create an integrated computational and experimental framework.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Boeing, Raytheon Technologies' research center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, QuesTek Innovations, General Electric's research arm, University of Maryland, National Energy Technology Laboratory, University of Virginia, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and University of Utah are the other Phase 1 developers.
DOE plans to award $14 million in additional funds for Phase 2 awardees.