Influence of Bondcoat Topography on the Properties of Suspension Sprayed YSZ Thermal Barrier Coatings

Intensive R&D work of more than one decade has demonstrated many unique coating properties; particularly for oxide ceramic coatings fabricated by suspension thermal spraying technology. Suspension spraying allows producing yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thermal barrier coatings (TBC) with columnar microstructure; similar to those produced by electron-beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD); and vertically cracked morphologies; with a generally low thermal conductivity. Therefore; suspension sprayed YSZ TBCs are seen as an alternative to EB-PVD coatings and those produced by conventional air plasma spray (APS) processes. Nonetheless; the microstructure of the YSZ topcoat is strongly influenced by the properties of the metallic bondcoat. In this work; direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) was applied to texture the surface topography of Ni-alloy based plasma sprayed bondcoat. Suspension plasma spraying (SPS) was applied to produce YSZ coatings on top of as-sprayed and laser-patterned bondcoat. The samples were characterized in terms of microstructure; phase composition and thermal cycling performance. The influence of the bondcoat topography on the properties of suspension sprayed YSZ coatings is presented and discussed.