Fatigue damage of a thermal barrier coated Ni-base superalloy

High temperature force controlled fatigue testing of thermal barrier coated (TBC), bond coated only and bare Superni C263 superalloy were conducted in air. Results reveal that the endurance limits for the TBC and bond coated substrate were substantially higher than that of the base alloy, while the opposite was found for high stress, low cyclic life times. It appears that the increase in endurance limit for the TBC and bond coated superalloy is due,to load shifting to the bond coat, interdiffusion of A] from coating to substrate and the premature failure for these two materials is possibly due to high stress crack imitation/growth in the TBC/bond coat layers. The mode of fracture in the substrate at very high fatigue stress was intergranular whereas that at low stress was transgranular. Spallation of the ceramic layer was evident at very high fatigue stress and also at low fatigue stress where the TBC composite specimen failed after 5400107 cycles during fatigue testing at 1073 K in air, due to a continuous alumina scale growth at the top coat (TBC) / bond coat interface.