High Temperature Phase Stability in Doped Thermal Barrier Coating Systems

One of the most used materials for Thermal Barrier Coatings manufacturing is Zirconia stabilized by addition of Yttrium oxides as dopant. It has been found that further addition of Rare Earth element oxides as luminescent codopant to TBC systems is not only a basic requirement for the adoption of the thermographic phosphor technique, but it could also contribute to reducing the overall coating thermal conductivity by as much as 50% from current levels, so that larger temperature gradients can be established through the TBC without excessive augmentation of its thickness.Since the final lattice structure strongly affects the general mechanical and thermal properties of the TBC, the stability of the desired crystal configuration over a wide range of temperature is a fundamental prerequisite for a successful TBC design. In fact, while phase stability is not a sufficient condition to ensure high durability, its absence is generally agreed to be severely detrimental to TBC cyclic life.