The focus on greater mobility by the military services has placed new emphasis on the gas turbine. However, the high air consumption of the turbine requires air filtering provisions because of component corrosion by airborne dust particles. Therefore a program was initiated at Southwest Research Institute by the Corps of Engineers to investigate this problem. Results of the study showed that turbine components are vulnerable to particles as small as 2-5 μ at average dust concentrations. Turbine life appears to be inversely proportional to the product of the dust concentration and maximum particle size.
