Recent initiatives and developments in high temperature technology aim at the exploitation of fuels and processes at the edge of present materials capabilities, driving service temperatures higher and operating within even more aggressive environmental conditions. The major driving force behind this trend is increased efficiencies and further growing efforts in environmental protection. The key to a reliable operation of components for sufficiently long service periods to a large extent lies in the high temperature properties of the materials used, with high temperature corrosion resistance as the major life and performancelimiting factor. As conventional alloy design invariably leads to a compromise between mechanical strength and corrosion resistance industry has turned to coatings to provide improved performance. Consequently there are extensive activities all around the world on the development of high performance protective coating systems, to prevent or minimize materials damage by corrosion, but also abrasion, wear and erosion at elevated temperature. Many of these systems (which may consist of surface modified bulk materials or genuine coating systems and in some cases also of special alloy approaches) are based on a systematic development starting from present theoretical understanding including laboratory data and ending-up in tailor-made solutions for industrial applications.
Following similar approaches to earlier EFC meetings, a workshop was held in Frankfurt/Main from 12 -13 October 2006 to collate the present state-of-the-art in this field