Characterization of micro-scale residual stress around thermal grown oxide using micro-slotting method and geometric phase analysis

Characterization of residual stress around thermal grown oxide (TGO) is important for understanding the spallation failure of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). Cr³⁺ photoluminescence piezo-spectroscopy (CPLPS) is a nondestructive method for measuring the in-plane residual stress in the TGO layer. However, using CPLPS it is hard to evaluate the out-of-plane residual stress around TGO. Here, we adopted the micro-slotting method combined with geometric phase analysis (GPA) for measuring the in-plane and out-of-plane stresses around TGO, with measured areas of 6 × 4 μm². In the experiment, a grating and a slot were milled on the specimen surface using focused ion beam, and GPA was applied to analyze the grating structure before and after the slot milling for calculating the released displacement field. Then finite element analysis was used to infer the residual stress in the direction vertical to the micro-slot. Two experiments were performed on the in-service TBC specimen. The first experiment presented the in-plane compression in the TGO, while the second experiment presented the out-of-plane tension at the crest of the TGO/BC interface, thus validating the theoretical analysis.