Laser Surface Texturing of Ceramic Coatings to Improve Adhesion; How Advanced Energy Solutions Can Be Implemented to Address Energy Inequity and Improve Educational Attainment and Workforce Development in Kenya 11 views

As aircraft are routinely exposed to debris such as sand, dust, and volcanic ash (i.e., calcia-magnesia-alumina-silicate; CMAS) which incur significant degradation of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), the design and implementation of environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) is fundamentally necessary to ensure safe aircraft operation, mitigating the degradation of TBCs applied internally to turbine engines. TBCs enable turbine engines to operate at higher temperatures without melting, achieving greater fuel efficiency and component safety. My capstone research explores the impact of surface texturing, via ultra short-pulse laser (USPL), on the interlayer adhesion strength of an EBC. The laser texturing technique removes material from a selected region on the order of microns to tens of microns (μm; 100x – 1000x smaller than a millimeter) – depending on processing parameters – with negligible thermal impact on the processed region. USPL texturing was used to create three geometric profiles, and adhesion testing (conforming to ASTM standards) was performed to determine the correlation between specific surface geometry and mechanical interlocking. The human aspect of this work ultimately centers around greater operational efficiency of the turbine engines, which in turn results in greater component reliability – reducing operational costs and improving operational safety – and more efficient fuel use, which may reduce environmental impact. Equity & inclusion was the primary framework used to analyze systemic inequities within Kenya pertaining to energy access issues that ultimately compound to impede educational attainment within the nation. Socioeconomic status greatly influences the ability to receive quality education, but this status is fundamentally influenced by reliable access to electricity. Although a majority of Kenyans have access to electricity, the amount of electricity available for consumption is meager at best and largely reflects the lowest tier of energy usage. A meta-analysis was performed to analyze various sources that explore socioeconomic factors that influence educational outcomes as well as the underlying relation between energy access and the higher education crisis in Kenya. Scaffolding the meta-analysis through the lens of the Equity and Inclusion framework provided significant insight into how advanced energy solutions may be implemented to equitably address these systemic issues, not just for the wealthy Kenyans with myriad available resources. Increasing the rate of post-secondary educational attainment was identified as one factor associated with improving workforce and work opportunities. However, as Kenya still struggles with realizing these increased attainment rates, future work will need to be done to examine the policy dimension and how new policies can work to not only close the education access gap but also improve the quality of available work. Out of over 56 million people, only ten percent of Kenyans are attending institutions of higher education. Addressing this education crisis is a necessary pursuit for the country to improve the quality of available work opportunities; Kenyans can’t do cutting-edge research in materials science and other scientific fields without attaining the institutional knowledge gained through academic experience and industrial practice.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Kenyan Education Crisis; Energy Inequity; Advanced Energy Solutions; Energy Access

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering Technical Advisor: James Fitz-Gerald STS Advisor: Rider Foley Technical Team Members: Joey Giordano, Isabel Mittal, Finley Pettitt, Aaron Sweeney, Andrea Watson

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-08