Anti-erosion coating technique based on plasma and its application in helicopter aero-engines

Military helicopters and transporters have to take off and land under extreme conditions like deserts or battle fields. Their engines suck in solid grains in these complicated environments, which leads to engine erosion, in turn causes reduced performances of the compressors, and severely influences the engines' reliability. Hence, the developments in anti-erosion coatings in the advanced countries in aspects of erosion mechanism, multi-layer coating and its preparation, erosion test platform, the environmental adaptability, and design of coating are summarized. The developments in anti-erosion coating in China, including the coating material, environmental features, production, and test method, are summarized and also compared with those in advanced countries. It is found that China lags behind in the relative works, namely, lacking of systematic research, not possessing sufficient coating design techniques, not verifying the effectiveness of testing methods, and lacking of basic research. These are the major reasons why coatings have not been applied to Chinese military aero-engines. The conclusions offer a direction and lay a foundation for further researches of anti-erosion coating in China.