In-situ measurement of elastic modulus for ceramic top-coat at high temperature

Abstract

The ceramic thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) play an increasingly important in advanced gas turbine engines because of their ability to further increase the engine operating temperature and reduce the cooling, thus help achieve future engine low emission, high efficiency and improve the reliability goals. Currently, there are two different processes such as the plasma spraying (PS) and the electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) techniques. The PS coating was selected to test the elastic modulus. Using the nanoindentation and resonant frequency method, the mechanical properties of ceramic top-coat were measured in-situ. According to the theory of the resonant frequency and composite beam, the testing system was set up including the hardware and software. The results show that the accurate characterization of the elastic properties of TBCs is important for stress-strain analysis and failure prediction. The TBCs systems are multi-layer material system. It is difficult to measure the elastic modulus of top-coat by tensile method. The testing data is scatter by nanoindentation method because of the microstructure of the ceramic top-coat. The elastic modulus of the top-coat between 20–1 150 °C is obtained. The elastic modulus is from 2 to 70 GPa at room temperature. The elastic modulus changes from 62.5 GPa to 18.6 GPa when the temperature increases from 20 °C to 1 150 °C.