Mixing of ceramic/NiCoCrAlY thermal barrier coating by intense pulsed ion beam irradiation

Thermal barrier coating (TBC) is used for enhancing the working temperature of high temperature alloys. Its thermal stability directly decides service life of the high temperature parts protected by TBC. In this work, intense pulsed ion beam (IPIB) irradiation was used to obtain stability-improved TBC of ZrO₂/NiCoCrAlY layers. The IPIB irradiation with proper parameters could form a mixing layer at the interface of ZrO₂/NiCoCrAlY with improved thermal stability. The best TBC could be formed under the following IPIB parameters: peak energy of 300keV, pulse duration of 65ns, and current density of 250A/cm². We owe the enhanced thermal stability of the TBC to the IPIB-induced elemental re-distribution, hence a protection layer under the thermal oxidation working condition, with reduced mismatch and stress between the layers.