No abstract

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), when used in gas turbines, may fail through thermal fatigue, causing the ceramic top coat to spall off the metallic bond coat. The life prediction of TBCs often involves finite element modelling of the stress field close to the bond coat/top coat interface and thus relies on accurate modelling of the interface. The present research studies the influence of bond coat/top coat interface roughness on the thermal fatigue life of plasma sprayed TBCs. By using different spraying parameters, specimens with varying interface roughness were obtained. During thermal cycling it was found that higher interface roughness promoted longer thermal fatigue life. The interfaces were characterised by roughness parameters, such as Ra, Rq and R∆q, as well as by autocorrelation, material ratio curves and slope distribution. The variation of spray parameters was found to affect amplitude parameters, such as Ra, but not spacing parameters, such as RSm. Three different interface geometries were tried for finite element crack growth simulation: cosine, ellipse and triangular shape. The cosine model was found to be an appropriate interface model and a procedure for obtaining the necessary parameters, amplitude and wavelength, was suggested. The positive effect of high roughness on life was suggested to be due to a shift from predominantly interface failure, for low roughness, to predominantly top coat failure, for high roughness.

Although thermal barrier coatings are used in industry for several decades there is still considerable demand for a further improvement of this coating system. Present research projects are for example dealing with the improvement of temperature capability and lifetime, developing of lifetime models, new processing technologies, or incorporating of additional functional properties in the coating. The present paper tries to give an overview on these recent research activities. In addition, it will also try to describe the different burner rig test facilities in Europe, which serve as an important test bed of thermal barrier coating systems.

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are used in gas turbines to prolong the life of the underlying substrates and to increase the efficiency of the turbines by enabling higher combustion temperatures. TBCs may fail during service due to thermal fatigue or through the formation of non-protective thermally grown oxides (TGOs). This study compares two atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) TBC systems comprising of two identical TBCs deposited on two different substrates (Haynes 230 and Hastelloy X). The thermal fatigue life was found to differ between the two TBC systems. The interdiffusion of substrate elements into the coating was more pronounced in the TBC system with shorter life, however, very few of the substrate elements (only Mn and to some extent Fe) formed oxides in the bond coat/top coat interface. Fractography revealed no differences in the fracture behaviour of the TBCs; the fracture occurred, in both cases, to about 60 % in the top coat close to the interface and the remainder in the interface. Nanoindentation revealed only small differences in mechanical properties between the TBC systems and a finite element crack growth analysis showed that such small differences did not cause any significant change in the crack driving force. The oxidation kinetics was found to be similar for both TBC systems for the formation * Corresponding author.

The adhesion of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) has been studied using the standard method described in ASTM C633, which makes use of a tensile test machine to measure the adhesion. The studied specimens consist of air plasma sprayed (APS) TBC deposited on disc-shaped substrate coupons of Ni-base alloy Hastelloy X. The bond coat (BC) is of a NiCoCrAlY type and the top coat (TC) consists of yttria-stabilised-zirconia. Before the adhesion test, the specimens were subjected to three different heat treatments: 1) isothermal oxidation at 1100 up to 290 h, 2) thermal cycling fatigue (TCF) at 1100 up to 300 cycles and 3) thermal shock at ∼ 1140 BC/TC interface temperature up to 1150 cycles. The adhesion of the specimens is reported and accompanied by a microstructural study of the BC and the thermally grown oxides (TGO), as well as a discussion on the influence of BC/TC interfacial damage on adhesion properties of TBC. The adhesion was * Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 13 284410; fax: +46 13 282505. E-mail address: robert.eriksson@liu.se Preprint submitted to Surface and Coatings Technology June 4, 2011 found to vary with heat treatment, as well as with heat treatment length.