Damage mechanisms and lifetime behavior of plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coating systems for gas turbines — Part II: Modeling

A phenomenological lifetime prediction tool for plasma-sprayed ZrO2 based thermal barrier coating systems with MCrAlY bondcoat is presented. The analytical model uses a two step approach for calculating the development of delamination cracks: The initial crack growth is considered to be proportional to the thickness of the thermally grown oxide (TGO) scale on the bondcoat. After exceeding a critical TGO thickness, crack propagation is governed by linear elastic fracture mechanics taking into account stresses induced by thermal mismatch and by TGO growth. Validation using experimental data from thermal cycling tests with high temperature dwell times from few seconds up to 96 h gave evidence of the good predictive quality of the model.