Thermal barrier coatings: Life model development and validation

The failure of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) during thermal cyclic fatigue (TCF) tests depends mainly on the thermal mismatch between the coating and the substrate, the thermally grown oxides (TGO) at the top coat-bond coat interface, and the sintering of the top coat. Understanding the interplay between these factors is essential for developing a life model. The present work focuses on further development of a previously established fracture mechanics based life model and its validation by comparing with the experimental results. The life model makes use of a Paris' law type equation to estimate the cycles to failure based on micro-crack growth. The fitting parameters for the Paris' law were obtained from the experimentally measured crack lengths after the interruption of TCF tests at different cycles. An alternative approach to obtain the fitting parameters through video monitoring was also discussed. It is shown that regardless of the approach to obtain the fitting parameters, the life model in its current form is able to predict the TCF life at different temperatures with reasonable accuracy. However, at very high temperatures (1150 degrees C) the predictive capabilities of the model appeared to be poor.