Influence of substrate strain anisotropy in TBC system failure

The lifetimes of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) are known to show considerable scatter. Experimental original data have revealed the strong correlation between spallation patterns and local strain field. This strain field was shown to be a function of the substrate single crystal orientation. Thus, this study addresses the strain variation in the single crystal substrate and its influence on TBC system life. This task was achieved using both finite element analysis (FEA) to take into account crystal plasticity in the substrate single crystal and a recent TBC life model [1].