Influence of isothermal and cyclic heat treatments on the adhesion of plasma sprayed thermal barrier coatings

The adhesion of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) has been studied using the standard method described in ASTM C633, which makes use of a tensile test machine to measure the adhesion. The studied specimens consist of air plasma sprayed (APS) TBC deposited on disc-shaped substrates of Ni-base alloy Hastelloy X. The bond coat (BC) is of a NiCoCrAlY type and the top coat (TC) consists of yttria-stabilised-zirconia. Before the adhesion test, the specimens were subjected to three different heat treatments: 1) isothermal oxidation at 1100 °C up to 290 h, 2) thermal cycling fatigue (TCF) at 1100 °C up to 300 cycles and 3) thermal shock at ~ 1140 °C BC/TC interface temperature up to 1150 cycles. The adhesion of the specimens is reported and accompanied by a microstructural study of the BC and the thermally grown oxides (TGO), as well as a discussion on the influence of BC/TC interfacial damage on adhesion properties of TBC. The adhesion was found to vary with heat treatment, as well as with heat treatment length.