Method of estimating oxidation progression in coated turbine components

1. A method for determining the extent of an oxidation reaction of a coated metal turbine component within a turbine, comprising:

providing an aluminum comprising coating on a metal substrate;

providing a family of reference oxidation rate curves for the aluminum comprising coating as a function of time and temperature;

calculating an actual oxidation rate for the aluminum comprising coating during operation of the turbine as a function of time or temperature;

creating a path dependent oxidation rate curve based upon the calculated actual oxidation reaction rate;

comparing the path dependent oxidation rate curve with the family of oxidation reaction rate curves;

selecting from the family of reference oxidation reaction rate curves, a curve that generally corresponds with the path dependent oxidation rate curve; and

using the selected curve and a summation of incremental amounts of the calculated actual oxidation reaction rate to approximate and makes available to a user the extent of oxidation of the coated turbine component.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the aluminum coating is an MCrAlY coating.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the metal substrate is a super-alloy.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaixiing the family of oxidation rate curves are determined for the same material.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the step of obtaining theoxidation rate is calculated at a location on a turbine component selected from at least one point.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the step of obtaining the extent of oxidatioir is a portion of the depleted operating life of the turbine component.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining the actual oxidation reaction rate is calculated by an Arrhenius relation.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1 , comprising a further step of calculating the oxidation rate at a plurality of locations on a turbine component that collectively comprise a region.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of making the comparison of the family of oxidation reaction rate curves to the path dependent oxidation rate is based on a best fit relation.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining the path dependent oxidation rate is within 50% of the actual oxidation rate.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining the path dependent oxidation rate is within 25% of the actual oxidation rate.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining the path dependent oxidation rate is within 10% of the actual oxidation rate.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a thermal barrier coating layer covering the aluminum coating.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13 , wherein the step of obtaining the oxidation rate of the thermal barrier coating layer is calculated in a manner similar to the aluminum comprising bond coat.

15. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the turbine component is a turbine blade or vane.

16. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the extent of oxidation is used to clock a plurality of blades or vanes within the turbine.

17. A method for determining the extent of an oxidation reaction of a coated metallic turbine component within a turbine, comprising:

determining a plurality of reference oxidation rates for a plurality of locations on the turbine component for a plurality of different turbine operating conditions;

obtaining a set of actual turbine operating conditions based on time or temperature;

obtaining a plurality of turbine component operating temperatures from the set of actual turbine operating conditions;

selecting an appropriate reference oxidation rate curve from the plurality of reference oxidation rate curves based on the actual turbine operating conditions;

using the selected reference oxidation rate curve as the actual oxidation rate curve;

calculating an amount of oxidation present in the turbine component using the actual oxidation rate curve; and

making available to a user the remaining life of the component based on calculated amount of oxidation,

wherein the predicted amount of oxidation present is determined from the summation of an incremental calculated amount of oxidation from the set of actual operating conditions, and wherein the oxidation rate curve is a path dependent oxidation rate curve.

18. The method as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the step of calculating the oxidation rate is performed in real time.

19. The method as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the step of obtaining turbine operating conditions are obtained remotely.

20. The method as claimed in claim 17 , comprising a further step of estimation of the amount of remaining operational life of the turbine component is at least partially based upon the amount of oxidation present in the component.

21. The method as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the amount of oxidation present in the turbine component is calculated using the actual oxidation rate in a discrete path dependant calculation.

22. The method as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the oxidation is a beta phase depletion.

23. A method of determining the extent of an oxidation reaction of a component, comprising:

determining a plurality of oxidation rates;

having or being provided one actual rate;

selecting from a plurality of oxidation rate curves a curve that most closely matches to a curve representative of actual operating conditions; and

using the curve to calculate the extent of oxidation of the component by incrementally summing the plurality of oxidation rates and wherein the oxidation rate curve is a path dependent oxidation rate curve; and making available to a user the calculated extend of oxidation of the component.

24. The method as claimed in claim 23 , wherein the oxidation is a beta phase depletion.