One of the great lies of the latter part of the 20th century is that government doesn't work.
Of course it does. The United States Government, beginning with its own invention, has always supported innovation and growth, and our founding fathers, including the one who may have been most critical to our independence - that would be Benjamin Franklin - were actively supportive of scientific inquiry.
It is not an accident that the British scientist - who had never set foot on this continent - James Smithson, bequeathed his vast wealth to the United States Government to create “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”
For most of our history, we have honored this bequest. This is the nation after all that developed most of the tools for mast communication, that founded and funded NASA - sending robots to all of the planets, and men to the moon, that invented the technology that provided the first novel source of primary energy to have been discovered since the invention of fire, nuclear energy, the country that extended the periodic table to places no one imagined it could go: I could go on and on.
I don't have much time today, but this was on my mind as I considered some work on high temperature thermal barriers.
Consider this work: Thermal and Environmental Barrier Coating for Advanced Propulsion Engine Systems
Here's some text:
Thermal and environmental barrier coatings are being designed to protect SiC/SiC CMC combustor and turbine components by extending the CMC temperature capability to 1650 °C (3000 °F) in oxidizing and water vapor containing combustion environments (refs. 9 and 10). To achieve the engine performance goals, the coatings must provide the thermal and environmental protection of Si-based components at the
gas temperatures in excess of 1760 °C (3200 °F), while maintaining the CMC substrate below its temperature limit, which is below 1316 °C (2400 °F). The coating consists of a multi-component zirconia or hafnia-based oxide defect cluster top layer, a strain tolerant interlayer, a mullite/rare-earth silicate environmental barrier layer, and a ceramic oxide/rare earth silicate-mullite(+Si) bond coat layer. The thermal and environmental barrier coating system provides an ultimate protective coating solution for silicon-based ceramic components exposed to very high temperatures and/or high flow gas velocities in water vapor-containing combustion and erosion environments. The advanced defect cluster oxide top layer possesses low intrinsic thermal conductivity and an extraordinarily high thermal stability at temperatures up to 3100 °F (1704 °C). The nanoscale oxide defect clustering and the thermodynamically stable interfaces induce phonon scattering, resulting in a reduction in thermal radiative thermal conductivity within the coating system.
It may seem esoteric, but I assure you that the work done here,
by your government is a gift to the whole human race. Should we survive it will be because we know the things being discussed in this obscure,
government report.
Like I said, I don't have much time on my hands, but these days, with Republican blather about government so much in the minds of so many, I would like to remind everyone what our Government does.
Have a nice evening.
