Running-in behaviour of thermal barrier coatings in the combustion chamber of a diesel engine

Thermal barrier coatings have the potential to improve the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty diesel engines by reducing heat losses. A method for in-situ measurement of heat flux from the combustion chamber of a heavy-duty diesel engine has been developed and was used to study the running-in behaviour of different thermal barrier coating materials and types of microstructures. The in-situ measurements show that the initial heat flux was reduced by up to 4.7% for all investigated thermal barrier coatings compared to a steel reference, except for an yttria-stabilized zirconia coating with sealed pores that had an increase of 12.0% in heat flux. Gd2Zr2O7 had the lowest initial value for heat flux. However, running-in shows the lowest values for yttria-stabilized zirconia after 2–3 h. Potential spallation problems were observed for Gd2Zr2O7 and La2Zr2O7.