Influence of ceramic top coat and thermally grown oxide microstructures of air plasma sprayed Sm2SrAl2O7 thermal barrier coatings on the electrochemical impedance behavior

Abstract

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique is used to examine the top coat and thermally grown oxide (TGO) microstructures of Samarium Strontium Aluminate (SSA) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) after exposed to pre-oxidation and oxidation at 1050 and 1100 °C, respectively. EIS spectra showed that the three relaxations frequencies in Bode plot corresponded to SSA top coat, TGO, and TGO-bond coat interface. A significant reduction in polarization resistance of SSA top coat and increase in capacitance for different pre-oxidation times of 10, 20 and 30 h are being found due to increasing the defects (pores and cracks) of about 13, 29 and 45%, respectively at 1050 °C. The reduction in bi-axial residual stresses was calculated to be about 57% as a consequence of decrement in top coat resistance. The growth of SSA TGO was found from 10 to 20 h of pre-oxidation treatment caused to decrease the capacitance which indicates the presence of highly enriched α-Al2O3 at the bond coat-top coat interface. The highest charge transfer resistance and lowest capacitance were found to be about 0.48 × 106 Ω cm2 and 1.1 nF cm−2 respectively for 20 h of pre-oxidation which could reflect the overall impedance kinetics of TBC system (SSA top coat and TGO) at the TGO-bond coat interface.The impedance responses of SSA top coat, TGO, and TGO-bond coat interface were reduced drastically after oxidation at 1100 °C for 10 h pre-oxidized specimen as compared to 20 and 30 h due to the compositional change of pure α-Al2O3 based TGO into more conductive NiCr2O4. The lowest diffusion coefficient, DCr3+ in the NiO lattice which reduced the formation of metal ion vacancies at the TGO-top coat interface caused to exhibit higher TGO resistance for 20 h pre-oxidized specimens over 10 and 30 h after oxidation at 1100 °C.