Processing, repairing and cyclic oxidation behaviour of sol–gel thermal barrier coatings

Sol–gel Thermal Barriers Coatings (TBCs) are manufactured using the dip-coating technique optimised in terms of process parameters including sol formulation, rate of withdrawing and heat treatment. The specific mechanisms of sol–gel TBCs, deposited on either NiAl or NiPtAl bond-coated superalloy substrates, are described. The possibility to reinforce and stabilise the crack network formed during the heat treatment or the first oxidation cycles using supplementary dip-coatings and appropriate process parameters is investigated. It is shown that implementing this technique that can be further regarded as an attractive way for repairing TBCs, significantly improves the cyclic oxidation behaviour of the multi-materials systems.