The effect of start-up cycle in ceramic coating used as thermal barrier for a gas turbine bucket

The role of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) is, as their name suggests, to provide thermal insulation of the blade. A coating of about 100-400 μm can reduce the temperature by up to 200 °C. A TBC can be used either to reduce the need for blade cooling (by about 36%) increasing the turbine efficiency, while maintaining identical creep life of the substrate; or to increase considerably the creep life of the blade while maintaining level of blade cooling (and therefore allowing the blade to operate at a lower temperature for an identical turbine inlet temperature).