From many years YSZ is used as the top coat material for TBC's, as it has good phase stability up to 1200°C, higher fracture toughness, lower thermal conductivity, erosion resistance & higher coefficient of thermal expansion. But, it has a drawbacks at high temperature such as sintering and transformation of phases. For this reason new ceramic materials with pyrochlores crystal structure such as Gd2Zr2O7 are being considered as it has high melting points, phase stability, lower thermal conductivity and CMAS resistance. But it has low fracture toughness when compared to YSZ. In order to take advantage of low thermal conductivity and high thermal stability of gadolinium zirconate and avoiding the drawbacks of low coefficient of thermal expansion and low toughness using YSZ, a double/multi-layer coatings approach is being used. Therefore, multi-layer TBCs are sprayed and compared with single layer coating in this work. These coatings are processed by suspension plasma spraying. For single layer coating YSZ is used, for double layer coating YSZ as the intermediate coating and Gd2Zr2O7 as the top coat is used. Additionally, a triple layer coating system comprising YSZ, Gd2Zr2O7 and dense Gd2Zr2O7 as top coat is also sprayed. The as sprayed coatings are characterized for microstructure analysis using optical microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM), elemental analysis of TGO using Energy-Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS). XRD analysis was done to identify various phases in the coating. Porosity analysis using Archimedes principle was carried out. Thermal cyclic fatigue (TCF) test of the sprayed coatings was carried out at 1100°C. Failure analysis of the TCF specimens was carried out using SEM/EDS. TCF results showed that the triple layer coatings (dense Gd2Zr2O7/Gd2Zr2O7/YSZ) had higher thermal cyclic fatigue life and lower TGO thickness when compared to single layer (YSZ) and double layer (Gd2Zr2O7/YSZ) TBCs.

Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) is the standard ceramic top coat material used for TBC application. Above 1200°C, issues such as CMAS (Calcium Magnesium Alumino Silicates) infiltration susceptibility, phase instability and high sintering rates limits its long durability. Therefore, new materials which can overcome these challenges without compromising the other requirements for TBCs are highly desirable. Gadolinium zirconate is one such material which has shown promising results for CMAS infiltration resistance. In this work, a relatively new TBC processing route, suspension plasma spray (SPS) has been employed to deposit gadolinium zirconate based TBCs. The primary aim of this study was to deposit two different coating systems (layered and composite) of gadolinium zirconate and YSZ composition using SPS technique and evaluate their thermal cyclic fatigue life performance. The layered system was a triple layered TBC with YSZ as the base layer, relatively porous GZ as the intermediate layer and dense GZ as the top layer. The blended TBC system comprised of a thin YSZ layer, an intermediate GZ+YSZ thick layer and dense GZ top layer. In the thermal cyclic fatigue test at 1100°C and 1200°C, it was observed that blended TBC had a lower thermal cyclic life than the layered TBC. It was shown that SPS is a promising technique to deposit columnar microstructure TBCs.

The upward trend in internal combustion engine efficiency is likely driven by the depletion of fossil fuels. Since no replacement in sight can deliver energy comparable to the conventional oil, there is a need to use it more rationally and effectively. Thermal barrier coatings have been seen for a long time as a solutionto increase the thermal efficiency of gas turbine engines but suffer from the lackof strong applicability in internal combustion engines. This is due to the different restrictions when comparing the environment on the gas turbines and in internal combustion engines. To overcome this problem and, at the same time, expand the application field of thermal barrier coatings, more efforts need to be devoted.In this work, different top coat materials using various deposition techniques were evaluated and categorized in three different thermal barrier coating (TBC) architectures. The first was the lamellar yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) top coat deposited by atmospheric plasma spray (APS), used as a reference sample. The second architecture was a columnar suspension plasma spray (SPS) TBC with YSZ and gadolinium zirconate (GZO) top coat. The SPS process can produce avariety of microstructures, and they were, for the first time, tested in an internal combustion engine. The third architecture was an SPS top coat, with an additional layer on the top, called a sealing layer of either metallic or ceramic material, both never investigated in a diesel engine application earlier. For the thermophysical properties investigation, a combination of laser flashanalysis (LFA) and modeling with object-oriented finite element (OOF) was employed to understand the properties in all the applications. The performance of the coatings was evaluated in two different ways, by thermal cyclic tests, basedon the TBCs behavior under cyclic thermal loads and by single-cylinder engine experiment. The characterization of the coatings was done by scanning electron microscope (SEM) before and after the thermal cyclic tests.The performance properties were correlated with coatings microstructure and thermophysical properties. It was shown that a columnar TBC produced by SPS had a superior engine efficiency in the single cylinder engine experiment.

Yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) is the state of the art ceramic top coat material used for TBC applications. The desire to achieve a higher engine efficiency of agas turbine engine by increasing the turbine inlet temperature has pushed YSZ toits upper limit. Above 1200°C, issues such as poor phase stability, high sinteringrates, and susceptibility to CMAS (calcium magnesium alumino silicates) degradation have been reported for YSZ based TBCs. Among the new materials,gadolinium zirconate (GZ) is an interesting alternative since it has shown attractive properties including resistance to CMAS attack. However, GZ has a poor thermo-chemical compatibility with the thermally grown oxide leading to poor thermal cyclic performance of GZ TBCs and that is why a multi-layered coating design seems feasible.This work presents a new approach of depositing GZ/YSZ multi-layered TBCs by the suspension plasma spray (SPS) process. Single layer YSZ TBCs were also deposited by SPS and used as a reference.The primary aim of the work was to compare the thermal conductivity and thermal cyclic life of the two coating designs. Thermal diffusivity of the YSZ single layer and GZ based multi-layered TBCs was measured using laser flash analysis (LFA). Thermal cyclic life of as sprayed coatings was evaluated at 1100°C, 1200°C and 1300°C respectively. It was shown that GZ based multi-layered TBCs had a lower thermal conductivity and higher thermal cyclic life compared to the single layer YSZ at all test temperatures. The second aim was to investigate the isothermal oxidation behaviour and erosion resistance of the two coating designs. The as sprayed TBCs were subjected toisothermal oxidation test at 1150°C. The GZ based multi-layered TBCs showed a lower weight gain than the single layer YSZ TBC. However, in the erosion test,the GZ based TBCs showed lower erosion resistance compared to the YSZ singlelayer TBC. In this work, it was shown that SPS is a promising production technique and that GZ is a promising material for TBCs.

Reducing the heat losses in heavy-duty diesel engines is of importance for improving engine efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions. Depositing thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) onto engine components has been demonstrated to have great potential to reduce heat loss from the combustion chamber as well as from exhaust components. The overall aim of this thesis is to evaluate the thermal cycling lifetime and thermal insulation properties of TBCs for the purpose of reducing heat losses and thermal fatigue in heavy-duty diesel engines. In the thermal cycling test inside exhaust manifolds, nanostructured yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) performed best, followed by YSZ with conventional microstructure and then La2Zr2O7. Forsterite and mullite could not withstand the thermal cycling conditions and displayed large cracks or spallation. Two sol-gel composite coatings displayed promising thermal cycling performance results in a furnace test under similar conditions. Thermal cycling testing of YSZ coatings having different types of microstructure, in a furnace at temperatures up to 800°C, indicated that the type of microstructure exerted a great influence. For the atmospheric plasma sprayed coatings, a segmented microstructure resulted in the longest thermal cycling lifetime. An even longer lifetime was seen for a plasma spray–physical vapour deposition (PS-PVD) coating. In situ heat flux measurements inside the combustion chamber indicated that plasma-sprayed Gd2Zr2O7 was the TBC material providing the largest heat flux reduction. This is explained by a combination of low thermal conductivity and high reflectance. The plasma-sprayed YSZ and La2Zr2O7 coatings provided very small heat flux reductions. Long-term testing indicated a running-in behaviour of YSZ and Gd2Zr2O7, with a reduction in heat flux due to the growth of microcracks in YSZ and the growth of macrocracks in Gd2Zr2O7. / <p>QC 20170821</p>