Toward Highly Sintering-Resistant Nanostructured ZrO2-7wt.%Y2O3 Coatings for TBC Applications by Employing Differential Sintering

There are still concerns in the scientific community about the stability of nanostructured YSZ coatings at high temperatures. Questions have been raised about the possibility of accelerated sintering of these ultrafine materials and the associated changes in properties that could accompany this sintering. In this work, nanostructured YSZ coatings were engineered to counteract sintering effects by tailoring the coatings to exhibit a bimodal microstructure formed by (i) a matrix of dense YSZ zones (produced from molten YSZ particles) and (ii) large porous nanostructured YSZ zones (produced from semimolten nanostructured YSZ particles) that were embedded in the coating microstructure during thermal spraying. These coatings were subjected to heat treatment in air at 1400 °C for 1, 5, and 20 h. The superior driving force for sintering exhibited by the porous nanozones, when compared to that of the dense zones, caused the nanozones to shrink at much faster rates than those exhibited by the denser matrix zones (i.e., differential sintering), thereby creating a significant network of voids in the coating microstructure. Due to these effects, after 20 h exposure at 1400 °C, the thermal conductivity and elastic modulus values of the conventional coatings were approximately two times higher than those of the nanostructured ones.