MODELING AND PREDICTION OF THE EFFECTIVE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF THERMAL BARRIER COATINGS USING FFT AND FE APPROACHES

Abstract : This work aims to investigate the relationship between the porosity and the effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of alumina coating produced by air plasma spraying (APS). A novel approach for modeling the ETC based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) approach in conjunction with image analysis is developed. A statistical tool analysis was also used to assess the porosity content within the coating and to evaluate the pore distributions. In addition, the ETC was evaluated with OOF2 software based on finite element (FE) approach for comparison between both approaches. Numerical predictions of ETC based on FFT approach are in good agreement with FE approach and the results show that the inhomogeneity of pore orientations within the coating contribute to the anisotropic thermal properties behavior.