Characterization of the stress distribution and evolution inside a thermal barrier coating after initial thermal cycles

The residual stress introduced inside a thermal barrier coating (TBC) during manufacturing and service processes is one of the main causes of thermal barrier failure. The formation and evolution of internal stress in the TBC begin at the early stage of service, but studies on the mechanism of the distribution and evolution of the stress in the TBC during the initial thermal cycle are still lacking. To explore the evolution mechanism of the stress in the TBC interior, an experimental study on the regulation mechanism of the initial thermal cycle on the TBC internal stress was carried out in this paper. First, the internal stress of TBC specimens after thermal cycles was characterized based on photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) technologies, in which the homogenization of the near-interface stress field was observed during the initial thermal cycle. Then, the evolution of the microstructure and phase structure of the TBC specimens was characterized. Finally, the phenomenological model of the evolution of the TBC internal structure was established, revealing that the initial thermal cycle regulated the microstructure of the top coating (TC) through phase transformation to realize the homogenization of the near-interface stress field.