A solution to the challenges of particle erosion and thermal cycle for PS-PVD 7YSZ thermal barrier coatings
Abstract Advanced aero-engine is a key technique that is used all over the world, where many high-temperature components such as turbine blades and combustor, are made of Ni/Co/Fe based superalloys. However, they need high-temperature protection to avoid fast performance degradation. Generally, the superalloy high-temperature components are protected by thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) obtained via an atmospheric plasma spray (APS) and an electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD). Here, a novel 3rd generation TBCs process using plasma spray-physical vapor deposition (PS-PVD) is presented, showing a more promising use than the traditional APS and EB-PVD. The PS-PVD feature uses evaporating ceramic powder, which results in the deposition of a feather-like columnar coating. This special microstructure showed good strain tolerance and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) deposition, giving great potential for application. In a working aero-engine, the high-temperature components face a serious environment, where foreign particle erosion is a great challenge and is the first barrier to the application of PS-PVD TBCs. As a solution, an Al-modification approach was proposed in this investigation. The results demonstrate that this approach can improve particle erosion resistance. Also, the thermal cycle performance had an apparent optimization.
