Thermal Cycle Fatigue Testing of Coatings

Under a recent STTR program the  Advanced Ceramics and Glasses group built a rig to test the adhesion of coatings under thermal cycling conditions from 1135 °C to room temperature.

Quench rates can be controlled using cold air passing through a vortex tube and the samples are photographed every cycle.

Click the links below to view time-elapse footage of  thermal barrier coatings being subjected to a cooling rate of 10°C per second.

Thermal Cycle Fatigue Test #1 (.mpg)

Thermal Cycle Fatigue Test #2 (.mpg)