The Evaluation of Durability of Plasma-Sprayed Thermal Barrier Coatings with Double-layer Bond Coat

The durability of atmospheric plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings (APS TBCs) with a double-layer bond coat was evaluated via isothermal cycling tests under 1120 °C. The bond coat consisted of a porosity layer deposited on the substrate and an oxidation layer deposited on the porosity layer. Two types of double-layer bond coats with different thickness ratios of the porosity layer to the oxidation layer (type A: 1:2 and type B: 2:1, respectively) were prepared. The results show that the porosity layer was oxidation free, the oxidation layer included a fraction of well-distributed α-Al2O3. The coefficient of thermal expansion of the oxidation layer was about 11.2 × 10−6 K−1, which was rather lower than that of the porosity layer. Thus, the oxidation layer can be regards as a secondary bond coat between ceramic topcoat and traditional bond coat. The thermal cyclic lifetime of type A TBCs was about 60 cycles, which exceeded 1.2 times the durability of type B TBCs. The delamination cracks in both TBCs all propagated in the ceramic topcoat, which were all identical to those in traditional TBCs. Therefore, the design of the double-layer bond coat affected the stress level rather than the stress distribution in TBCs.