Thermal fatigue resistance of plasma sprayed yttria-stabilised zirconia onto borided hot work tool steel, bonded with a NiCrAlY coating: Experiments and modelling

Repeated fast surface temperature transients can damage the materials and/or their surface treatments by thermal fatigue. This happens in aluminium diecasting devices. One conducted thermal fatigue tests with samples of hot work tool steel, respectively untreated, simply borided and protected by a multi-layer. In the last case, top coat is yttria stabilised zirconia (YSZ), followed by a nickel superalloy and then a borided layer (undercoat). The zirconia coating was applied with plasma spray. The multi-layer showed poor resistance during the thermal fatigue tests. Better understanding these tests and the resulting thermal fatigue observed on the treated materials was achieved by a lifetime model based on Coffin-Manson equations.