Abstract

Numerical and experimental investigations were conducted to find the effect of percentage and distribution of porosity and heat treatment on the conductivity value in the plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings (TBC). The numerical analysis of the SEM images of six plasma-sprayed samples showed an explicit relation between changes in the porosity percentage and the conductivity. Also, with a similar analysis, it was shown that the distribution of porosity and its orientation do not have a significant impact on the conductivity magnitude. A correlation was established for the variation of conductivity with respect to the material porosity. The experimental results indicated that applying a heat treatment at 1070 °C leads to an increase in the conductivity for 5–30% in the APS TBCs.