Failure of the plasma-sprayed coating of lanthanum hexaluminate

Lanthanum magnesium hexaluminate (LaMgAl₁₁O₁₉, LMA) is an attractive material for thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), and the failure of its coating was studied in this work by thermal cycling, X-ray diffraction, dilatometric measurement and thermal gravimetric-differential thermal analysis. The dilatometric measurement indicates that even though the bulk material of LMA has a higher sintering-resistance than the typical TBC material, i.e. yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), the plasma sprayed coating of LMA has two serious contractions due to the re-crystallization of LMA and phase transitions of alumina. LMA has similar thermal expansion behaviour with alumina, leading to a good thermal expansion match between LMA and the thermally grown oxide layer. On the other hand, the plate-like structure of LMA not only results in a low thermal conductivity, low Young's modulus, but also a high stress tolerance, and these are believed to be the reasons for the long thermal cycling life of LMA coating.