Today, the efficiency of turbines is limited by different losses. Minimizing these losses is a main goal to reduce fuel consumption and produce more environmentally friendly machines. Observations on the scales of fast swimming sharks display a riblet structure. These riblets provide a significant reduction of drag losses, but are quite sensitive on pollution. Therefore, for a good performance, it is essential to combine these structures with self-cleaning properties. A lateral- and depth-selective distribution of particles with a negative thermal expansion coefficient (NTE) in a binder with positive thermal expansion coefficient can be used to deform the surfaces depending on the temperature. At high temperatures a riblet structure will be formed by local expansion or shrinkage and at cooling down the surface will be cleaned by the reversal of the deformation. Beside the production of a coating with a lateral- and depth-selective distribution of the NTE-ceramics within the binder the thermodynamical stability of the ceramics inside the binder is part of the investigations to provide a sufficient long-time stability of the coating.

Due to excellent mechanical properties and low density compared to super alloys (e.g. Ni-based alloys) Titanium Aluminide is often used as base material in the aerospace industry. But the thermodynamic conditions within turbines limit the capabilities of the material. At the moment γ-TiAl is used for parts, which have to withstand temperatures up to 700 °C. Above this temperature oxidation kinetics cause a thick oxide layer consisting of several oxides, which tend to fast chipping. Therefore the surface of the γ-TiAl is being destroyed and the material loses its excellent mechanical properties. To enable the use of this material at higher temperatures, the development of an oxidation protection coating is necessary. Several coating techniques e.g. EB-PVD were tried in the last years, but the oxidation behaviour of the γ-TiAl could not be significantly improved. Protective thermal spray coatings so far seem to be a promising technology in order to protect γ-TiAl components against oxidation. Therefore this technique was used within this work, which aims for the development of new oxidation protection coatings. A multilayer system was developed. The multilayer consists of a ceramic ZrO 2 -7Y 2 O 3 coating with a NiCoCrAlY top coat. In this case the ceramic coating avoids the diffusion of Ti or Al of the γ-TiAl into the MCrAlY coating or the other way around. The NiCoCrAlY coating improved the oxidation behaviour of the Titanium Aluminide by building a dense oxide layer on top of the multilayer. The paper will give an overview about the results of the oxidation tests with the new developed multilayer concept for protection of the γ-TiAl against oxidation.

Fundamental understanding of relationships between coating microstructure and thermal conductivity is important to be able to understand the influence of coating defects, such as delaminations and pores, on heat insulation in thermal barrier coatings. Object-Oriented Finite element analysis (OOF) has recently been shown as an effective tool for evaluating thermo-mechanical material behaviour, because of this method’s capability to incorporate the inherent material microstructure as an input to the model. In this work, this method was combined with multi-variate statistical modelling. The statistical model was used for screening and tentative relationship building and the finite element model was thereafter used for verification of the statistical modelling results. Characterisation of the coatings included microstructure, porosity and crack content and thermal conductivity measurements. A range of coating architectures was investigated including High purity Yttria stabilised Zirconia, Dysprosia stabilised Zirconia and Dysprosia stabilised Zirconia with porosity former. Evaluation of the thermal conductivity was conducted using the Laser Flash Technique. The microstructures were examined both on as-sprayed samples as well as on heat treated samples. The feasibility of the combined two modelling approaches, including their capability to establish relationships between coating microstructure and thermal conductivity, is discussed.

This paper examines the oxidation behaviour of CoNiCrAlY coatings manufactured by APS, HVOF and CGDS deposition techniques when subjected to isothermal heat treatments. Comparison of the as-deposited coating microstructures is achieved by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Investigation of the oxide compositions and growth dynamics is achieved by SEM, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Oxide growth rates were determined by a series of mass gain measurements. Results from this study demonstrate that lower coating porosity and oxide contents lead to lower oxide growth rates. Results also demonstrate that low-temperature processing of CoNiCrAlY bond coats is beneficial to their oxidation behaviour as it favours the formation of alumina in preference to other detrimental fast-growing mixed oxides.

Cold gas dynamic spray (CGDS) utilizes a supersonic gas jet to accelerate fine solid powders above a critical velocity at which particles impact, deform plastically, and bond to the substrate material in the ambient environment. This process is potentially beneficial for thermal barrier coating (TBC) bond coat deposition because it would avoid oxidation of the feedstock powder that normally occurs when higher temperature thermal spray processes are employed. Therefore, there would be no prior aluminum depletion in as-deposited bond coats produced by the CGDS technique. This paper presents the oxidation behaviour of a TBC with CGDS-produced CoNiCrAlY bond coat, in comparison with TBCs with APS- and HVOF-CoNiCrAlY bond coats. Oxidation behaviors of these TBCs were evaluated in terms of microstructural evolution, kinetics of thermally-grown-oxides (TGO), as well as cracking behaviour during thermal exposure at 1050 °C.

The thermo-mechanical properties of a thermal barrier bond coat (BC) play an important role in governing the life-time of a coating system. The presented work aims to determine these properties for NiCoCrAlY coatings sprayed on Hastelloy X substrates sprayed under different process conditions. Temperature dependent Young’s modulus values are determined for both Atmospheric Plasma Sprayed (APS) and HVOF sprayed coatings using the four-point bending test. Particular attention is paid to microstructure-property relationships during heating. Young´s modulus was determined up to 950°C and evaluated for coatings loaded in both tension and compression. Results are discussed in the context of the effect of feedstock material, process conditions and microstructure characteristics. The methods and results presented are attractive, particularly for the thermal spray industry, since these properties are a prerequisite when the BC is to be considered in component design.

Processing of powder feedstock materials often influences the deposition behavior and ultimately, the properties of the atmospheric plasma spray (APS) deposited coatings. The necessity of materials design and the control of deposition parameters are therefore, of high importance. Feedstock from promising ceramic thermal barrier coating materials with Ba(Mg 1/3 Ta 2/3 )O 3 and La(Al 1/4 Mg 1/2 T 1/4 )O 3 perovskite structures (λ~ 2 W/m-K and α~11x10-6 /K at 1473 K) were prepared through solid state and conventional spray drying techniques. The powders were then deposited on metallic substrates by APS process. Monitoring of in-flight particle characteristics and splat formation as well as characterization of deposited coatings, were conducted. It was found that these types of perovskite materials tend to lose constituents during deposition by atmospheric plasma spraying. This paper reports on the challenges of powder feedstock design and the control of critical deposition parameters to prevent or minimize the non-stoichiometric deposition of decomposition-prone perovskite coatings by APS process.

Thermal barrier coatings have got considerable importance for the improvement of gas turbine efficiency. These materials are applied on the surface of gas turbine blades and vanes and are based on a layer of low-oxidation material (mainly MCrAlY alloys, where M stay of Co, Ni or a combination of both) and a ceramic top layer that acts as proper thermal barrier (normally Yttria Partially Stabilized Zirconia). Coating removal is an important aspect in the production of these blades and vanes. “Decoating” or “stripping” is needed during the production of new components as well as for the reconditioning of existing ones. The present paper is dedicated to a new removal method of the ceramic Zirconia layer, based on dry ice blasting. This method will not impact on the roughness and morphology of the bond coat surface, making it suitable for re-coating with TBC, without any further operation before TBC recoating. This possibility has an important impact on the stripping costs and time, avoiding all the operations related to the bond coat. The paper presents the process tests to get the process set up and the characterization of the surfaces comparing the stripped ones with the “original ones” coated by LPPS on new components, ready to be TBC coated. Optical and SEM microscopy, 3D profilometry have been used for characterization. Finally a Thermal Cycling Fatigue test has been carried out in order to validate the procedure of stripping and re-coating.

Thermal cycle resistance of Ni-20Cr, Ni-50Cr and CoNiCrAlY coatings manufactured by air plasma spraying was investigated according to a Japanese Industrial Standard "Testing method for thermal cycle resistance of oxidation resistant metallic coatings (JIS H 8452)” established in 2008. The specimens were exposed at 1000 °C and 1093 °C in air under cyclic heating and cooling condition up to 100 times. The thermal cycle resistance of oxidation-resistant metallic coatings was found to depend strongly on the testing temperature and the chemical composition of the coating materials. In the thermal cycle test at 1000 °C, the remarkable failure was not observed in any specimen. However, in the thermal cycle test at 1093 °C, although the Ni-20Cr coating caused the spalling on the whole surface of coating, the Ni-50Cr and the CoNiCrAlY coatings exhibited the excellent thermal cycle resistance even after applying the thermal cycles of 100 times, The CoNiCrAlY coating showed the mass gain with increasing the numbers of thermal cycle due to the preferential oxidation between the splats of the thermal spray particles. Furthermore, the failure behavior of specimens was investigated in detail by SEM, XRD and EPMA etc.

The aim of the study presented in this paper was to develop the next generation of production ready air plasma sprayed thermal barrier coating with a low conductivity and long lifetime. In order to achieve these goals; a number of coating architectures were produced using commercially available plasma spray guns. Modifications were made to powder chemistry including; high purity powders for sintering resistance, Dysprosia stabilised Zirconia powders and powders containing porosity formers. Agglomerated & Sintered (A&S) and Hollow Oven Spherical Powder (HOSP) morphologies were used to attain beneficial microstructures. Finally, dual layer coatings were produced using the different powder morphologies. Evaluation of the thermal conductivity of the coating systems from room temperature to 1200°C was conducted using laser flash technique. Tests were done on as-sprayed samples and samples heat treated for 100 hours at 1150°C in order to evaluate the first stage sintering resistance of the coating systems. Thermal conductivity results were correlated to coating microstructure using image analysis of porosity and crack content. The results show the influence of beneficial porosity on reducing the thermal conductivity of the produced coatings.