News Listing
November 2008
Eleventh
International Symposium on Superalloys
Seven
September 14-18, 2008
Conference
Report Overview
The Eleventh International
Symposium on Superalloys was held at the Seven
Springs Mountain Resort from September 14th-18th. The
conference has been held every four years at Seven Springs since 1968. This
year set a record for attendance with over 461 registrants from countries
around the world. I have attached the list of attendees for reference in
Appendix I. There were ~ 110 papers presented at the conference and published
in the proceedings on CD (PDF files) and in a book of 1000 + pages.
The conference was
organized into six main topical sessions, 1) Alloy Development, 2) Advances in
Processing, 3) Micro-deformation and Macroscopic Properties, 4) Coatings and
Environmental Effects, 5) High Temperature Behavior and 6) Modeling, Simulation
and Validation. The conference organizing committee selected 45 papers for 25
minute oral presentations. The remaining papers were available for discussion
during interactive poster sessions and are included in the proceedings as full
technical papers.
The Conference Organizers and their
affiliations are:
Conference General Chair
Secretary Treasurer Program Chair
Ken Green of RR-Indy;
Jacqui Wahl – Cannon-Muskegon (PCC) Gern Maurer
– Carpenter Technology Roger Reed –
The Eleventh International
Symposium for Superalloys was dedicated to Dr.
Raymond F. Decker, for his substantial and pioneering contributions to the Superalloys field. Ray’s career spans over 58 years
and was highlighted by his technology leadership at INCO (Corporate Vice
President of R&D), Michigan Tech, the Univ of
Michigan and as a co founder of Thixomat. He is noted
for his fundamental work on trace element effects and strengthening mechanisms
in superalloys. His more recent activities at Thixomat have led to the discovery of nanostructured
Mg sheet alloys for autos, aerospace, military armor, batteries, fuel cells and
biomedical implants.
I picked up a great deal of
information from discussions with colleagues, poster session interactions and
in the technical presentations. In the section following my general
observations, I will summarize some of the papers and presentations I thought
were among the most significant. I’ve focused on GT hot section airfoil
material and coating developments and will not address the topic of disk
alloys. I have tried to highlight significant points from these papers and have
included the paper abstract and in some cases figures from the paper as well. I
have organized the papers and my comments by the lead author’s
affiliation. The general observations are compiled from a variety of sources
and serve to provide additional background or context …
General Observations
Rhenium, Ruthenium &
Platinum Market Price Volatility
The topic of Re and Ru market pricing volatility and in some cases inability to
maintain adequate supply to produce alloys (Re) generated substantial
speculation at the conference about the direction the industry would be taking
over the next four years. This year the papers discussing next generation
alloys focused primarily on increased levels of Re and Ru
emblematic of the 4th & 5th generation SX alloys.
Juxtaposed with this trend was GE’s keynote address – they are the
first OEM to publicly announce new low Re or no Re alloys for their (flight)
engines. Purportedly all of the OEM’s are actively assessing their
options for alternative alloy approaches, generating a substantial amount of
alloy development activity behind the scenes. Additionally Rhenium and
Ruthenium are being utilized to increase the temperature capability of current
and next generation MCrAlY overlay coatings used as
TBC bond coats and stand alone environmental protection coatings. Siemens in
particular is committed to Re coating systems. They claimed a 40 – 60 C
benefit with their SiCoat 2464 (Ni-17CR-10Al-1.5Re-0.3Y)
in their paper (Subramanian IGTI paper GT2008-51532). Ruthenium levels up to 1
w/o are disclosed as a further improvement (see US6924046:
“Rhenium-containing protective layer for protecting a component against
corrosion and oxidation at high temperatures” assigned to Siemens)…
To provide some context for
these concerns, the charts below show the pricing trends for Re and Ru for the last 5 to years. Note that Re is shown in $/Kg
and Ru and Pt are priced in $/Toz
($11,000 / Kg equates to $340 / Toz).
Rhenium pricing has not
fallen recently, unlike Ru or Pt. Since it
isn’t tied to the automotive industry it has remained unaffected by the
current economic downturn. A few quotes help put this in perspective:
“The airline industry's fight for survival in the face of
soaring oil prices has triggered a massive jump in the price of a number of
obscure and scarce metals that are used to improve the fuel economy of jet
engines. Traders said demand for minor metals such as rhenium, chromium, cobalt
and titanium was booming as Rolls-Royce, General Electric and Pratt &
Whitney bought them for new super-alloys that helped cut aircraft fuel
consumption.”
“The jump in the price of rhenium - an extremely rare
metal that was the last naturally occurring chemical element to be discovered -
is the most striking example of the new environment. The rhenium price
yesterday surged to a record of $11,250 a kilogramme,
more than double last year's level and up from about $1,000 in early 2006,
traders said. "At current prices it is more a semiprecious metal than an
industry metal," one trader commented. At current rates, rhenium is only a
little less than half the price of gold - a boon to
By
Javier Blas in London
“Whichever way you look at it, this is still a metal with
not more than 45 mt of new supply each year
(excluding scrap & revert) and demand in the order of 65 mt. Credit crunch or not, any fall in prices can only
therefore be pounced upon by long term buyers grateful for the chance to build
inventory for known future demands. And those demands are building up rather
nicely, $390 bln worth of new aeroplanes
for China by 2027 according to Boeing, or as much as 15 mt
of Rhenium needed for every new GTL (gas to liquid hydrocarbon catalysts
– scrubbing S & Hg) plant, or just simply an average of
about 25 kgs for every new jet engine. One mind-blowing
calculation is that if you take Boeing`s estimate of
almost 30 000 new aeroplanes by 2027 and multiply by
a low of 20 kgs Re per engine, the aeroindustry needs on average 60 mt
of Rhenium a year for next two decades.”
“With the top three consumers GE, Pratt
& Whitney and Cannon
Rhenium
Defies Downturn 2008-03-08 Lipmann Walton & Co
Platinum has also shown
pricing volatility as illustrated in the five year monthly average pricing
chart from Johnson-Matthey. Platinum is used for TBC bond coatings on aero
engines for GE, RR & Honeywell among others. Platinum is also used extensively
in the superalloy casting process to help position
ceramic cores relative to the ceramic shell, maintaining airfoil wall. GE
announced their next generation NiAlCrZr bond coating
(flight engines) at the conference. In addition to improved TBC life, lower
cost was also considered to be a strong driver when Pt hit its peak of $2276 in
March. With the dramatic fall in auto sales and overall economic downturn the
Pt price is likely to remain in the trading range $700-900 / Toz or lower.
Please contact me regarding
additional information or for a copy of the complete report (34 pages)
summarizing my observations and commentary from the Superalloys
2008 Conference.
Material Processing Technology, LLC
Phone 231-780-1265; e-mail JeffSmith@mpt-llc.com
Copyright 2008