An elevated-temperature depth-sensing instrumented indentation apparatus for investigating thermo-mechanical behaviour of thermal barrier coatings

In our study, an elevated-temperature depth-sensing instrumented indentation apparatus was designed and developed to investigate thermo-mechanical response of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). A furnace was used to heat the test region up to 1600 °C and a heat protection design was proposed to protect electronic devices from high temperature environment. Load was applied by a precise loading motor and a piezoelectric actuator in high (0-440 N) and low (0-40 N) load ranges, respectively. A loading shielding scheme was designed to protect the low load sensor during the high loading process. In order to obtain reliable test data, the as-developed apparatus was calibrated at room and elevated temperatures. It is found that the developed apparatus was suitable to obtain the intended data. After that, two typical TBCs were tested from 600 to 1500 °C, and the load-depth curves were presented to show the main functions and usability of the measuring system.