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The Combined Effect of Creep and TGO Growth on the Cracking Driving Force in a Plasma-Sprayed Thermal Barrier System

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Abstract

A comprehensive understanding of the failure mechanisms of plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) under temperature cycling is a prerequisite for developing the next advanced gas turbine with prolonged thermal cyclic lifetime. In this study, a finite element model including the dynamic growth of thermally grown oxide (TGO) is proposed to explore the combined effect of creep and TGO growth on the cracking driving force in TBCs. A different group of material configurations is designed to satisfy the objective. An adapted interface element based on the virtual crack closure technique is proposed to obtain the strain energy release rate, namely cracking driving force, and crack growth is assessed using a mixed-mode criterion. The results reveal that the cracking predicted by the simulation is in line with the experiment results. Two possible mechanisms of crack coalescence are proposed. The increase in TGO lateral growth strain will induce premature coating spallation. The bond coat and TGO creep only have a slight impact on the ceramic cracking if a comparatively low TGO growth stress is included. Hence, coating optimization suggested in this study may provide additional options for the development of TBCs with extended thermal cyclic lifetime.

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Acknowledgments

The present project is financially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (No. 51671159), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2012CB625100), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals.

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  1. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, Shaanxi Province, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi-Yuan Wei, Hong-Neng Cai, Rui-Xue Feng & He Zhang

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Wei, ZY., Cai, HN., Feng, RX. et al. The Combined Effect of Creep and TGO Growth on the Cracking Driving Force in a Plasma-Sprayed Thermal Barrier System. J Therm Spray Tech 28, 1000–1016 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-019-00873-1

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