A gas‑turbine plant is a rotary thermal engine that uses air and fuel gas as working media. Its structure and working principle are similar to those of aero‑engines. Likewise, high‑temperature alloys account for 40%‑60% of the total weight of a gas turbine.
The gas‑turbine industry is of strategic significance to national energy security. It serves not only as critically important equipment for national defense hardware, but also holds an irreplaceable strategic status in power generation, energy extraction & transmission, distributed energy systems and other fields.
Given the vital importance of gas turbines, developed countries attach great importance to their development. At present, the industry is largely monopolized by a handful of corporations including GE of the United States, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan, and Siemens of Germany.
There remains a substantial gap between China’s overall gas‑turbine technology and the world’s advanced standards, with an estimated technology lag of 20‑30 years. Advancing gas‑turbine development is critical to China’s research on advanced manufacturing and cutting‑edge energy technologies. Research into high‑temperature alloy technologies — such as single‑crystal alloys, super‑cooled turbine blades, thermal barrier coatings (TBC), as well as oxidation‑ and hot‑corrosion‑resistant coatings — constitutes a vital component of gas‑turbine development.