Hundreds of different types of coatings are used to protect a variety of structural engineering materials from corrosion, wear, and erosion, and to provide lubrication and thermal insulation. Of all these, thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have the most complex structure and must operate in the most demanding high-temperature environment of aircraft and industrial gas-turbine engines. TBCs, which comprise metal and ceramic multilayers, insulate turbine and combustor engine components from the hot gas stream, and improve the durability and energy efficiency of these engines. Improvements in TBCs will require a better understanding of the complex changes in their structure and properties that occur under operating conditions that lead to their failure. The structure, properties, and failure mechanisms of TBCs are herein reviewed, together with a discussion of current limitations and future opportunities.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/296/5566/280.full.pdf

Thermal Barrier Coatings for Gas-Turbine Engine Applications

1. Introduction 2. The physical metallurgy of nickel and its alloys 3. Single crystal superalloys for blade applications 4. Superalloys for turbine disc applications 5. Environmental degradation: the role of coatings 6. Summary and future trends.

The Superalloys: Fundamentals and Applications

Mechanisms controlling the durability of thermal barrier coatings

This paper summarizes the basic properties of ceramic materials for thermal barrier coatings. Ceramics, in contrast to metals, are often more resistant to oxidation, corrosion and wear, as well as being better thermal insulators. Except yttria stabilized zirconia, other materials such as lanthanum zirconate and rare earth oxides are also promising materials for thermal barrier coatings.

Ceramic materials for thermal barrier coatings

A diverse spectrum of technology drivers such as improved thermal barriers, higher efficiency thermoelectric energy conversion, phase-change memory, heat-assisted magnetic recording, thermal management of nanoscale electronics, and nanoparticles for thermal medical therapies are motivating studies of the applied physics of thermal transport at the nanoscale. This review emphasizes developments in experiment, theory, and computation in the past ten years and summarizes the present status of the field. Interfaces become increasingly important on small length scales. Research during the past decade has extended studies of interfaces between simple metals and inorganic crystals to interfaces with molecular materials and liquids with systematic control of interface chemistry and physics. At separations on the order of ∼1 nm, the science of radiative transport through nanoscale gaps overlaps with thermal conduction by the coupling of electronic and vibrational excitations across weakly bonded or rough interface...

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Nanoscale thermal transport. II. 2003–2012

Ceramic thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) will play an increasingly important role in future gas turbine engines because of their ability to effectively protect the engine components and further raise engine temperatures. Durability of the coating systems remains a critical issue with the ever-increasing temperature requirements. Thermal conductivity increase and coating degradation due to sintering and phase changes are known to be detrimental to coating performance. There is a need to characterize the coating thermal fatigue behavior and temperature limit, in order to potentially take full advantage of the current coating capability. In this study, a laser thermal fatigue test technique has been used to study the delamination crack propagation of thermal barrier coatings under simulated engine heat flux heating and thermal cyclic loading. Thermal conductivity and cyclic fatigue behaviors of plasma-sprayed ZrO2–8 wt.% Y2O3 thermal barrier coatings were evaluated under high temperature, large thermal gradient and thermal cycling conditions. The coating degradation and failure processes were assessed by real-time monitoring of the coating thermal conductivity during the testing. The test results showed that the initial average crack propagation rates of ZrO2–8 wt.% Y2O3 coatings were in the range of 3–8 μm/cycle. The crack propagation rates increased to 30–40 μm/cycle at later stages of testing, and the critical spalling crack size ranged from 3 to 5 mm for the coatings. The accelerated crack growth is attributed to the increased driving force for crack propagation under the laser heat flux cyclic test conditions.

Development and thermal fatigue testing of ceramic thermal barrier coatings

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19840023277/downloads/19840023277.pdf

Failure analysis of plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings

This article summarizes eight contributions from a thermal spray conference that was held in late 1991 at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, Long Island, New York. Plasma spray processing is discussed in terms of plasma-particle interactions, deposit formation dynamics, thermal properties of thermal barrier coatings, mechanical properties of coatings, feedstock materials, porosity, manufacture of intermetallic coatings, and synchrotron X-ray microtomographic methods for thermal spray materials. Each section is intended to present a concise statement of a specific practical and/or scientific problem. It then describes current work that is being performed to investigate this area, and finally suggests areas of research that may be fertile for future activity.

/pdf/current-problems-in-plasma-spray-processing-4lwtztz4wj.pdf

Current Problems in Plasma Spray Processing

A thermal barrier coating system consists of two layers of a zirconia-yttria ceramic. The first layer is applied by low pressure plasma spraying. The second layer is applied by conventional atmospheric pressure plasma spraying. This facilitates the attachment of a durable thermally insulating ceramic coating directly t the surface of a highly oxidation resistant NiAl-based intermetallic alloy after the alloy has been preoxidized to promote the formation of a desirable Al 2 O 3 scale.

/pdf/plasma-sprayed-ceramic-thermal-barrier-coating-for-nial-1jxablwyf2.pdf

Plasma sprayed ceramic thermal barrier coating for NiAl-based intermetallic alloys

Thermal barrier and environmental barrier coatings (TBC's and EBC's) have been developed to protect metallic and Si-based ceramic components in gas turbine engines from high temperature attack. Zirconia-yttria based oxides and (Ba,Sr)Al2Si2O8(BSAS)/mullite based silicates have been used as the coating materials. In this study, thermal conductivity values of zirconia-yttria- and BSAS/mullite-based coating materials were determined at high temperatures using a steady-state laser heat flux technique. During the laser conductivity test, the specimen surface was heated by delivering uniformly distributed heat flux from a high power laser. One-dimensional steady-state heating was achieved by using thin disk specimen configuration (25.4 mm diam and 2 to 4 mm thickness) and the appropriate backside air-cooling. The temperature gradient across the specimen thickness was carefully measured by two surface and backside pyrometers. The thermal conductivity values were thus determined as a function of temperature based on the 1-D heat transfer equation. The radiation heat loss and laser absorption corrections of the materials were considered in the conductivity measurements. The effects of specimen porosity and sintering on measured conductivity values were also evaluated.

/pdf/thermal-conductivity-of-ceramic-thermal-barrier-and-2qhs6oah8n.pdf

Robert A. Miller

Papers

Development and thermal fatigue testing of ceramic thermal barrier coatings

Failure analysis of plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings

Current Problems in Plasma Spray Processing

Plasma sprayed ceramic thermal barrier coating for NiAl-based intermetallic alloys

Thermal Conductivity of Ceramic Thermal Barrier and Environmental Barrier Coating Materials