Correlation of Process Conditions, Porosity Levels and Crystallinity in Atmospherically Plasma Sprayed Yb2Si2O7 Environmental Barrier Coatings

Environmental barrier coatings are necessary to protect fibre reinforced ceramics from high recession rates in fast and hot water vapor-containing gases as they typically are found in the hot gas sections of gas turbines. A standard material to protect SiC/SiC composites is atmospherically plasma sprayed (APS) Yb2Si2O7. For this material, it is difficult to obtain at reasonable substrate temperatures both low porosity and high crystallinity levels during APS. In this paper results of coatings prepared by a so-called high velocity APS process and also more conventional processes are presented. All coatings have been prepared by a single layer deposition method which avoids inter passage porosity bands. Furthermore, the samples were heat-treated in air at 1300 °C for 100 h and the influence of the topcoat density on the growth of the silica scale on the used silicon bond coat was studied.