The influence of air plasma sprayed alumina coating geometry, microstructure, interface roughness on its delamination and crack propagation resistance during low temperature thermal cycling, i.e. thermal mismatch stress, is investigated both numerically and experimentally. Previous studies on thermal cycling loading concentrate on flat, numerically designed locally curved specimens and/or mathematically modeled roughness without extension towards real coating morphology, which renders the conclusions less practically driven. Results show that arbitrarily oriented cracks originate predominantly near the coating/substrate interface and propagate along zones of high tensile and shear residual stress. The crack path deflection was attributed to the complex stress concentration structure resultant from the intricate microstructural porosity and coating general convex geometry. Microstructural features such as porosity increase the interfacial and coating tensile stress, which may lead to important delamination processes even during low temperature thermal cycling.

A new challenge in the transport systems concerns with improving efficiency. Thermal swing coatings are interesting candidates for internal combustion engines due to their potential to reduce cooling requirements and increase efficiency. K 2 Ti 6 O 13 (KTO) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were prepared by atmospheric plasma spraying through powder structure design and optimization of deposition conditions. The thermophysical properties of plasma-sprayed KTO deposits and their effect on the thermal swing have been investigated. Their thermal conductivities were tested by a laser flash method and the thermal performance of the coatings was further examined by thermal swing test. The phases, nominal chemical compositions and microstructure of KTO deposits were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS). The results indicated that the chemical composition change occurs to the coatings resulting in a deviation from nominal stoichiometry due to chemical reactions between the plasma gas and particles. The thermal conductivity of the coating is very sensitive to the coating compositions, and the coating prepared using porous powder under pure argon presents a single K 2 Ti 6 O 13 phase and high porosity, and the lowest thermal conductivity of 0.85 W/m·K.

Ni/Co-based alloys have been widely employed as bond coats (BCs) in thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) to provide oxidation resistance through the formation of a dense thermally grown oxide (TGO) layer. TGO thickening is a major contributor to TBC failure. Conventional approaches to minimize its growth have included refinement/optimization of the BC composition, deposition techniques, and post-treatments. However, these approaches have only led to incremental improvements in TBC performance and do not directly address the effect of the thin interfacial oxide layer on the TBC lifetime. In a shift from conventional thinking, the development of an Al 4 C 3 -Ni alloy composite BC aims to overcome the challenges generated by current TGOs. Post-deposition heat treatment tailors the coating microstructure to form a continuous internal carbide network. At elevated temperatures, the Al 4 C 3 preferentially oxidizes to form an interlacing protective Al 2 O 3 “root” that provides better TGO anchoring and reduces TBC thermal mismatch with the substrate. In this paper, the coatings were manufactured through gas-shrouded plasma spraying using various parameters to optimize the degree of inflight carbide dissolution and minimize the extent of coating porosity and cracking. XRD and carbon analysis were performed on the coatings and the microstructure was observed using SEM. Differences between coatings are discussed in relation to the spraying parameters.

Hybrid plasma spraying combines plasma spraying of dry powders and liquids (suspensions and solutions). Combination of these two approaches allows deposition of microstructures consisting of both conventional coarse and ultrafine splats. Moreover, splats with dissimilar size may have also different chemistry. Such combination is potentially interesting for many fields of thermal spraying, including thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), as novel microstructures may be economically and relatively easily obtained. The technology has recently reached a level, where coatings with interesting hybrid microstructures may be reliably deposited, so that their potential for practical applications may be evaluated. In this study, first experimental TBCs with YSZ-based hybrid topcoat were deposited by hybrid water/argon stabilized plasma (WSP-H) technology. Al 2 O 3 and YAG were selected as secondary phase deposited from suspension as both provide strong materials contrast in scanning electron microscope (SEM) so they can be used as “markers” in the coating microstructure. Samples were exposed to thermal cycling simulating in-service TBC conditions in order to test their thermal shock resistance. Changes of the coating microstructure were studied by SEM analysis and X-ray diffraction.

Driven by the search for an optimum combination of particle velocity and process temperature to achieve dense hard metal coatings at high deposition efficiencies and powder feed rates, the high velocity air-fuel spraying process (HVAF) was developed. In terms of achievable particle velocities and temperatures, this process can be classified between high velocity oxy-fuel spraying (HVOF) and cold gas spraying (CGS). The particular advantages of HVAF regarding moderate process temperatures, high particle velocities as well as high productivity and efficiency suggest that the application of HVAF should be also investigated for the manufacture of MCrAlY (M = Co and/or Ni) bond coats (BCs) in thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems. In this work, corresponding HVAF spray parameters were developed based on detailed process analyses. Different diagnostics were carried out to characterize the working gas jet and the particles in flight. The coatings were investigated with respect to their microstructure, surface roughness and oxygen content. The spray process was assessed for its effectiveness. Process diagnostics as well as calculations of the gas flow in the jet and the particle acceleration and heating were applied to explain the governing mechanisms on the coating characteristics. The results show that HVAF is a promising alternative manufacturing process.

Thermal barrier coatings have provided a revolution in the industry as they allow a higher operating temperature of equipment, improving the efficiency of gas turbines. However, one of the biggest challenges in terms of increasing the lifespan of TBC systems is the attack of fused silicates or simply CMAS (Calcium-Magnesium-Alumina-Silicate). CMAS are particles from the environment that can penetrate the TBC structure and cause delamination of the coating when exposed to high temperatures during thermal cycling. In this study, a plasma sprayed YSZ coating in the as coated and surface treated condition were given CMAS depositions from various preparation methods, and then subjected to thermal cycles at different evaluation temperatures and exposure times. The permeability of the ceramic layer and the penetration path of CMAS at different temperature levels were evaluated, as well as the penetration characteristics in relation to the microstructure of the ceramic layer. X-Ray diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy were used to characterize the applied CMAS and the penetration kinetics and conditions. Samples with longer exposure time had a considerable volume increase. The conditions to guarantee the formation of the silicate and its consequent wettability are also discussed.

In the study, Axial Suspension Plasma Spray (SPS) was used to produce a range of columnar microstructures from Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) suspension after an extensive experimental design. The optimized microstructure was applied to a multi-layer GZ/YSZ system, in which both layers were sprayed with SPS. In addition to SPS, a new GZ coating using Axial Solution Precursor Plasma Spray (SPPS) was developed and deposited on top of the SPS GZ coating. The durability in the furnace cycling test (FCT), as well as the consequences of CMAS infiltration into the columnar coatings was extensively studied on different microstructures. Preliminary CMAS test on the SPS coatings infiltrated them completely, leading to delamination. To minimize the detrimental effect of CMAS on the underlying SPS, the dense solution precursor GZ layer was aimed to act as a sealant to protect the underlying columnar SPS-GZ layer from molten CMAS infiltration.

Due to the aggressive operation conditions of turbine hot sections, protective coatings are required to provide oxidation and hot corrosion resistance for superalloy components. Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are comprised of a ceramic top coat and a metallic bond coat (BC) and are typically used as thermal protection systems against these aggressive environments. Conventional BC materials are MCrAlX, with M being metals or alloys (e.g., Ni, Co or NiCo) and X being reactive elements such as Y, Hf, Ta, Si. Due to their strength, thermal stability, and oxidation resistance, high-entropy alloys (HEAs) have presented promise for use as BC materials in hightemperature applications. Owing to its cocktail effect, optimally chosen HEAs could help to enhance the hot corrosion resistance of BCs by forming a more continuous, dense, and uniform thermally grown oxide (TGO). Furthermore, HEAs could help to control the diffusion between the bonding layer and substrate in elevated temperature environments. This paper will discuss the thermodynamic, mechanical, and microstructural behaviour of HEAs. Furthermore, the selection and usage of HEAs as BCs will be explored and compared to conventional BCs in TBC systems.

Multi-layered thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are deposited on gas-turbine metallic components to protect them against high temperatures, oxidation, and corrosion. However, TBCs have limited working temperatures and lifetimes due to their material properties. Several approaches are being tested to increase TBC topcoats' phase stability and properties. Increasing entropy to stabilize phases is a concept introduced in 2004 and required decreasing the Gibbs free energy. Many high-entropy ceramics are being developed for structural and functional applications, and high-entropy oxides (HEOs) are promising TBC ceramics due to their unique characteristics. HEOs are single-phase solid solutions that contain five or more cations, usually a mixture of transition metals and rare earths. Due to the cocktail effect, the final material has a different behavior from its constituents, making it a viable method to improve the properties of traditional materials. Generally, high entropy materials are characterized by three additional phenomena: sluggish diffusion, severe lattice distortion, and high entropy. A review of possible improvements in the lifetime of TBC topcoats using different HEOs in terms of their composition, properties, and stability are presented here. Different HEOs are then examined and various thermophysical properties, high-temperature stability, and sintering resistance are discussed.

Although increasing the thickness of thermal barrier coating (TBC) enhances its thermal protection capability, it generally decreases its thermal shock durability. This is caused by an increase of thermal stress due to the increase of the temperature differential between the TBC surface and the metal surface. In order to realize the optimum TBC thickness, the thermal shock durability of TBC should be evaluated precisely and quantitatively. This study focused on two advanced techniques to evaluate the durability of TBC that were developed through joint research with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS). The first technique utilizes a new acoustic emission (AE) measurement system called continuous wave memory (CWM), which can analyze AE events more precisely than conventional AE systems. The second technique is a noncontact strain measurement method using laser speckles, which can measure the strain on the TBC surface at high temperature. These techniques were combined with a laser thermal cycle test to establish the “𝜖H-N diagram”, which shows the relationships between the hot shock strain 𝜖H in the laser thermal cycle test and the cycle number N to failure for different TBC thicknesses. In these experiments, CWM was used to determine the TBC failure more precisely, while the laser speckle method was used to measure the thermal shock strain 𝜖H. The obtained 𝜖H-N diagram revealed the durability of TBC for various thicknesses and was transformed to an evaluation map to predict the TBC thickness limitation. For real parts, this evaluation map is useful to estimate if a thicker TBC will fail or not by comparing the maximum strain it is predicted to undergo by numerical analysis.

Environmental degradation of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) by molten deposits such as calcium magnesium alumino-silicates (CMAS) is one of the most vital factors resulting in the failure of thermal barrier coatings, while turbine engine inlet temperatures are kept increasing for higher fuel efficiency. A new phase composite ceramic had been developed and evaluated for the topcoat of a durable thermal barrier coating (TBC) system with low thermal conductivity property and improved erosion resistance. The present work is to continue the effort to exploring the behavior of CMAS resistance of the phase composite TBC at high temperatures. The effects of CMAS attack and thermal exposure on the TBC degradation were investigated in experimental runs. In addition, a YAG-modified layer over the top of the TBC was applied with the attempt to improve CMAS resistance of the TBC system. The evaluation of CMAS resistance was focused on the most important characteristics of coating microstructure, CMAS penetration, and failure mode and test condition factors. The mechanisms for the CMAS infiltration and the TBC damages were discussed based on the analyses of the CMAS corroded samples in details.

In this work, the possibility of controlling the thermally sprayed TBC microstructure is in order to improve the overall TBC system performance. The control is possible primarily by metallic bond coat surface microtexturization prior to ceramic top coat spraying. Such pretreated bond coat was modeled to investigate the influence of the substrate topography on the plasma stream behavior as well as the feedstock particle thermophysical properties and trajectories in the substrate closest proximity. The microscale computational domain was considered here. It was extracted from entire spraying domain and located in the microtextured substrate boundary layer. Then, advanced flow models were introduced to the governing equations to define heat flux to the substrate, turbulent flow, and plasma jet / feedstock droplets interaction. Feedstock discrete phase was defined by the means of Discrete Phase Model (DPM) including particle drag laws and DPM source modelling. The motivation for this study was to model and investigate the influence of the bond coat microtexturization on the behavior of the feedstock particles in the substrate boundary layer. This opens the possibility of better understanding the TBC build-up mechanism and strictly controlling the microstructure of such TBCs.

In the current work, a typical NiCrAlY alloy and, moreover, amorphous Fe-based alloys are arc-sprayed for the desired application in cryogenic environments. Nitrogen is used as process gas, while the stand-off distance and number of passes were varied. The results demonstrate coatings with low, but varying porosity and oxide content and mostly high electrical conductivity. Especially the amorphous Fe-based coatings reveal homogeneous coating structures and promising properties. Further investigations regarded the deposition efficiency, tensile adhesive strength, hardness, durability under cryogenic conditions and the thermal diffusivity.

Hot section components of stationary gas turbines such as turbine blades are coated with thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) to increase the high thermal strain tolerance thereby the improvement of the performance for the gas turbines. TBCs represent high-performance ceramics and are mostly composed of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) in order to fulfil the function of thermal insulation. The microstructure of conventional TBCs should be porous to decrease heat conduction. Besides porous TBCs, the recently developed vertically segmented thermal barrier coatings (s-TBCs) feature outstanding thermal durability. In this work, process parameter development for atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) of s-TBCs is presented. Within the experiments, relevant process parameters such as powder feed rate, surface speed and pathway strategy have been optimized. The aim of this work is to achieve a combination of low internal residual stress and high adhesive tensile strength for s-TBCs. For the formation of vertical cracks, the heat input into the powder feedstock material and the substrate must be controlled precisely.

Repair methods are of great interest to the aeronautic industry, especially for turbines. Deposition techniques that can quickly and easily repair small localised areas of damage in Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBCs) on combustion chambers could be financially worthwhile. In a first approach, a Low-Power Plasma Reactor (LPPR) operating at low pressure (< 1000 Pa, 240 W) was tested to locally deposit effective Yttria partially Stabilised Zirconia (YSZ) as TBC; however, a vacuum chamber would be more difficult to implement on an industrial scale. For this reason, a new LPPR (< 1 kW) operating at atmospheric pressure with solution precursors was investigated. The precursors were injected in the plasma afterglow to be sprayed and deposited onto parts of combustion chambers. As the afterglow temperature was cooler than for most thermal spray processes, spray distance was less than 10 mm. As such, YSZ deposition could be performed locally in hard-to-reach areas. YSZ coating characteristics were studied by FTIR and SEM analyses. For example, YSZ coatings exhibited the expected stoichiometry, a precursor conversion of 98 mol%, good adherence, and a porosity evaluated at approximately 30 vol%. In addition, YSZ coating thickness could be greater than 200 μm.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes offer geometrical freedom to design complex shaped parts that cannot be manufactured with conventional processes. This leads to new applications including aerospace propulsion systems where the Ni-superalloy based material has to withstand high operating temperatures. In this contribution, the influence of heat treatment and surface conditioning of the additively manufactured Inconel 718 substrates on the thermocycling performance of suspension sprayed YSZ coatings was investigated. The different surface conditions included as-built, sandblasted and milled substrate surfaces with and without heat treatment. YSZ coatings were applied using suspension plasma spraying (SPS) with commercial available suspensions. Thermal cycling tests (FCT) at 1100°C, 1300 °C, and 1500 °C were applied to coating systems until failure occurred. The microstructures of the samples were characterized before and after thermal cycling. The performance of the coatings was mainly influenced by the coating morphology and FCT test conditions and less by the state of the AM substrates. Columnar-like YSZ SPS sprayed coatings on AM Inconel 718 substrates seemed to be a promising candidate for rocket engine applications.

Recent development of plasma spraying with liquid feedstocks enabled deposition of novel thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) with top-coats incorporating various desirable features, such as columnar microstructure or ultrafine porosity. Moreover, different materials may be relatively easily combined, e.g., by alternating feedstocks in the feed line or using feedstock mixtures. Coatings with gradient change of chemistry/microstructure towards the free-surface can be also prepared by gradual change of the feedstock composition, which may be potentially beneficial for example to mitigate stresses at the macroscopic interfaces between TBC layers (typically bond-coat/top-coat or within layered top-coat). In this study, three experimental TBCs with gradient top-coats were successfully deposited by hybrid water/argon-stabilized WSP-H plasma torch, i.e., one version of coating with 8 wt.% yttria stabilized zirconia transitioning into gadolinium zirconate Gd 2 Zr 2 O 7 (YSZ→GZO) and two versions of Al 2 O 3 transitioning into YSZ (Al 2 O 3 →YSZ). Thermal cycling fatigue (TCF) test with peak temperature of 1100 °C showed outstanding thermal shock resistance of the YSZ→GZO coating and mediocre to poor resistance of both Al 2 O 3 →YSZ coatings.

In suspension plasma spraying (SPS); the use of water based suspensions provides a cheaper; safer and more environmentally friendly alternative to organic liquids. However; due to the physical properties of water; producing a water based SPS coating with desirable microstructure has so far been elusive. In this study; the effects of pH and dispersant on the rheology and stability of YSZ water based suspensions were investigated. PEI; PBTCA and α-Terpineol were used as dispersant polymers. The stabilized suspensions were deposited by Axial III plasma spray system and the relationship between suspension parameters and the atomized droplet size and the final coating microstructure was studied. The results showed that a combination of Terpineol dispersant with pH adjustment to 2.5; could lead to a SPS coating with columnar microstructure having 17.4 vol.% porosity.

Intensive R&D work of more than one decade has demonstrated many unique coating properties, particularly for oxide ceramic coatings fabricated by suspension thermal spraying technology. Suspension spraying allows producing yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thermal barrier coatings (TBC) with columnar microstructure, similar to those produced by electron-beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD), and vertically cracked morphologies, with a generally low thermal conductivity. Therefore, suspension sprayed YSZ TBCs are seen as an alternative to EB-PVD coatings and those produced by conventional air plasma spray (APS) processes. Nonetheless, the microstructure of the YSZ topcoat is strongly influenced by the properties of the metallic bondcoat. In this work, direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) was applied to texture the surface topography of Ni-alloy based plasma sprayed bondcoat. Suspension plasma spraying (SPS) was applied to produce YSZ coatings on top of as-sprayed and laser-patterned bondcoat. The samples were characterized in terms of microstructure, phase composition and thermal cycling performance. The influence of the bondcoat topography on the properties of suspension sprayed YSZ coatings is presented and discussed.

In this study, a novel self-healing concept is considered in order to increase the lifetime of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) in modern gas turbines. For that purpose, SiC healing particles were introduced to conventional 8YSZ topcoats by using various plasma spray concepts, i.e., composite or multilayered coatings. All topcoats were sprayed by SG-100 plasma torch on previously deposited NiCrAlY bondcoats produced by conventional atmospheric plasma spraying. Coatings were subjected to thermal conductivity measurements by laser flash method up to 1000°C, isothermal oxidation testing up to 200h at 1100°C and finally thermal cyclic fatigue (TCF) lifetime testing at 1100°C. Microstructural coating evaluation was performed by scanning electronic microscope (SEM), in the as-produced and post high-temperature tested states. This was done to analyze the self-healing phenomena and its influence on the high-temperature performance of the newly developed TBCs.