Modern aero engines are a powerful testament to humanity's engineering prowess. Yet despite the superalloys, advanced composites and complex architectures, the margin between success and failure is sometimes perilously thin-encompassing just a few dozen microns of precisely applied coating that protects underlying components from the huge internal stresses of a turbofan.Once applied mainly as a fix for premature parts degradation, these coatings are now integral to the advertised reliability, efficiency and durability of new-build engines, and they are found on almost every critical component within them."Coatings are considered a critical technology when optimizing the overall performance of today's engines, and they are becoming even more essential as advanced engine designs evolve," notes Leo Buchakjian, aviation business development manager at Praxair Surface Technologies.
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