Preparation and Thermal Shock Resistance of Gd2O3 Doped La2Ce2O7 Thermal Barrier Coatings

As one of the promising thermal barrier coating (TBC) candidates, stoichiometric (La0.8Gd0.2)2Ce2O7 (LGC) coatings were prepared by atmospheric plasma spraying (APS), using (La0.8Gd0.2)2Ce2.5O8 as a spray powder and optimized spray parameters. It was found that spray distance and spray power both play an important role in the phase composition and microstructure of the coating. The LGC coating exhibited lower thermal conductivities than that of La2Ce2O7 (LC) coating, which is ~0.67 W/m·K at 1200 °C. Double-ceramic-layer (DCL) optimum (La0.8Gd0.2)2Ce2O7/YSZ (LGC/YSZ) thermal barrier coating was prepared and its thermal shock behavior was investigated. The LGC/YSZ DCL TBCs had better thermal shock resistance ability than that of LC/YSZ TBCs, which was around 109 cycles at 1100 °C. However, the failure mode was similar to that of LC/YSZ DCL TBCs, which was still layer-by-layer spallation in the top ceramic layer due to the sintering of the ceramic coating.