Abstract: A thermal barrier coated metallic article includes a platinum-group metal enriched outer layer on the article. The surface of the outer layer has a microstructure including a plurality of projections extending away from the metallic article. A thin adherent layer of oxide is formed on the outer layer of the metallic article. A ceramic coating is provided on the oxide layer on the surface on and around the projections. The ceramic coating includes a plurality of columnar ceramic grains which extend through the full thickness of the ceramic coating. The grains are arranged in clusters separated by gaps. The grains deposited around the projections are generally blocked. The projections reduce the stress in the ceramic coating near the interface with the adherent layer of oxide and also reduce the stress in the adherent layer of oxide and hence increase the working life of the thermal barrier coating system.

Abstract: A thermal barrier coated metallic article includes a platinum-group metal enriched outer layer on the article. The surface of the outer layer has a microstructure including a plurality of projections extending away from the metallic article. A thin adherent layer of oxide is formed on the outer layer of the metallic article. A ceramic coating is provided on the oxide layer on the surface on and around the projections. The ceramic coating includes a plurality of columnar ceramic grains which extend through the full thickness of the ceramic coating. The grains are arranged in clusters separated by gaps. The grains deposited around the projections are generally blocked. The projections reduce the stress in the ceramic coating near the interface with the adherent layer of oxide and also reduce the stress in the adherent layer of oxide and hence increase the working life of the thermal barrier coating system.

Abstract: A superalloy turbine blade (10) has a MCRALY bond coating (22) and a thermal barrier coating (24). The thermal barrier coating (24) comprises a plurality of alternate layers (25, 27) which have different structure to produce a plurality of interfaces (26) substantially parallel to the metallic substrate (20)/ bond coating (22) interface. These interfaces (26) provide paths of increased resistance to heat transfer to reduce thermal conductivity of thermal barrier coating (24). The structure in the alternate layers (25, 27) of the thermal barrier coating (24) is columnar (28), or segmented, to ensure that the strain tolerance of the thermal barrier coating (24) is not impaired. The columnar grains (28) in the layers (25, 27) extend substantially perpendicular to the metallic substrate (20)/ bond coating (22) interface. This enables thermal barrier coating (24) of reduced thickness and weight to be used.