Slurry spray technique for manufacturing thermal barrier coatings

Thermal barrier coatings were developed more than 40 years ago to reduce operating temperatures, temperature gradients and thermal stresses in structures and machine components across a wide range of industries and applications. Recently, a new, relatively simple and low-cost manufacturing technique of thermal barrier coatings has been developed, which is called the slurry spray technique. The main challenge was to achieve the coating quality comparable with the existing manufacturing methods, which are often quite expensive and unpractical to coat large areas or curved surfaces. This article describes this manufacturing technique and presents selected results of thermomechanical and full-scale testing of the fabricated coatings including graded coatings. It is recognized that more research is required to fully develop this technique and bring it to the stage of practical applications.