Pure alumina coating obtained by thermal spraying can find applications as electrical insulating layer. Thermally-sprayed ceramic coatings exhibit a complex lamellar structure with a network of interconnected pores, inter-lamellar and intra-lamellar cracks. In this work, the influence of the microstructure on electric properties for plasma-sprayed alumina coatings was investigated. Coatings have been sprayed with different pressures and gases using a CAPS (‘Controlled Atmosphere Plasma Spraying’) as well as different alumina feedstock powders. Detailed quantitative image analysis of cross-section views allowed to select six microstructures with different porosity levels and cracks orientation distributions. In order to assess the behaviour of the electrical insulation and the influence of local defects on electric properties, the so-called Scanning Electron Microscope Mirror Effect (SEMME) method has been applied on outer surfaces and on cross-sections of the different selected alumina coatings. This method, originally developed to study the ability of a bulk insulating material in trapping of charges from an electron beam irradiation in a SEM, revealed to be successfully feasible for porous materials such as thermally-sprayed ceramic coatings. It has been shown that cracks orientation modified both propagation and trapping of charges and therefore the electric properties of plasma-sprayed alumina coatings.

Porosity is a key feature of thermally-sprayed coating microstructure. Porosity is made of pores and cracks of various orientations. Both pores and cracks can be intralamellar or interlamellar due to coating build-up which leads to lamellae from impinging of droplets. Pores are interconnected with cracks, which results in a 3-dimensional porosity network. Direct observation of this network is intricate and remains somewhat limited. A 3-dimensional simulation of this network was therefore developed in this work based on the building-up of objects which simulated the lamellae in the sprayed microstructure. These objects were constructed from morphological measurements using confocal microscopy of actual lamellae, i.e. “splats”, obtained from “linescan”-typed plasma-sprayed experiments. This simulation, in the lamella building-up, involves randomly cracks and pores the characteristics of which (i.e. content, orientation, size, …) were determined from thorough quantitative image analysis of cross-section plasma-sprayed alumina microstructures. Using 3-dimensional images resulting from the simulation, finite element calculations were performed to study dielectric properties of plasma-sprayed alumina as a function of porosity. The influence of anisotropy is discussed in particular and calculated values compared to experimental values.

Thermal plasma spray processes with their various operating parameters can be considered as flexible technique to carry out appropriate ceramics coatings. This work deals with plasma spraying of several ceramics powders (hydroxyapatite (HA), Al 2 O 3 -TiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 , ZrO 2 -Y 2 O 3 (YSZ) and Cr 2 O 3 ) with suitable parameters using a CAPS system ("Controlled Atmosphere Plasma Spraying"). The HPPS (High Pressure Plasma Spraying), APS (Air Plasma Spraying) and IPS (Inert Plasma Spraying) modes were applied in order to obtain the suitable microstructure. The microstructures and phase compositions allowed to establish that surrounding high-pressure in the CAPS chamber is leading to a good heating of the powder and a good quality for the coatings.