Thermomechanical analysis of functionally graded thermal barrier coatings with different microstructural scales

The recently developed two-dimensional version of the higher-order theory for functionally graded materials (denoted as HOTFGM-2D in previous communications) has been used to investigate the effects of microstructural architectures in graded thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) on stress distributions in the presence of a through-thickness temperature gradient. In particular, the response of TBCs with different levels of functionally graded microstructural refinement and different arrangements has been investigated, and the results for the through-thickness stress distributions are compared with those based on the standard micromechanical homogenization scheme. The examples presented illustrate the shortcomings of the standard micromechanics-based approach that is applied to the analysis of functionally graded TBCs, particularly if the presence of creep effects is included in the analysis.