Bescond, Christophe

Blouin, Alain

Campagne, Benjamin

Kr\ufcger, Silvio

Lesvesque, Daniel

Lima, Rogerio

Maple, Basil

Monchalin, Jean-Pierre

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Laser-Ultrasonic Evaluation of Thermal Spray Coatings
Krüger, Silvio; Lesvesque, Daniel; Bescond, Christophe; Lima, Rogerio; 
Maple, Basil; Campagne, Benjamin; Blouin, Alain; Monchalin, Jean-Pierre
          1st International Symposium on Laser Ultrasonics:  
                     Science, Technology and Applications 
                     July 16-18 2008, Montreal, Canada
    
 
Laser-Ultrasonic Evaluation of Thermal Spray Coatings 
 
Silvio KRUGER, Daniel LÉVESQUE, Christophe BESCOND, Rogerio LIMA, Basil 
MAPLE, Benjamin CAMPAGNE, Alain BLOUIN and Jean-Pierre MONCHALIN 
 
Industrial Materials Institute, National Research Council of Canada 
Boucherville, Québec, Canada; Phone: +1 450 641 5076, Fax +1 450 641 5106;  
silvio.kruger@cnrc-nrc.gc.ca 
 
Abstract  
The non-destructive characterization of thermal spray coatings for thermal barriers, anti-wear or anti-
corrosion coatings is of particular importance for quality control, but it can be also very useful for 
understanding the mechanical and thermo-mechanical behavior of parts allowing the development of life 
prediction models. Laser-ultrasonics, a non-contact technique with great flexibility for generation and 
detection spot geometry, presents many advantages over conventional ultrasonic techniques for this 
application. In this paper, some recent works on the characterization of thermal sprayed coatings by laser-
ultrasonics are presented. First, the use of surface acoustic waves to obtain elastic properties, density and 
thickness of dense coatings is considered and results obtained with WC-Co coatings are presented. 
Second, elastic property measurements on thermal barrier coatings are introduced and, finally, results on 
the detection of defects like vertical cracks and coating disbonding for dense coatings are discussed. 
Keywords: Laser ultrasound, coating, thermal spray, WC-Co, surface acoustic waves  
 
1.  Introduction 
 
Thermal sprayed coatings have been widely used to improve materials performance by 
providing them outstanding properties like corrosion protection, wear protection or 
thermal insulation. Because of their special lamellar structure, inhomogeneous 
composition and the presence of discontinuities like pores and cracks, the elastic 
properties of thermal sprayed coatings are significantly different from those measured in 
the same bulk materials processed by other means, and may vary with the spray 
conditions employed for deposition. If the assessment of coating properties is done in a 
non-destructive way, it provides a powerful quality control tool, since these properties 
should be directly related to the desired technological performance characteristics like 
wear behavior and fatigue life. 
 
The ultrasonic waves propagate through the thickness of the coating (bulk waves) or 
along the coating (surface waves). Surface waves have been used largely for 
characterization of coatings due to their sensitivity to many properties [1]. Among the 
advantages of the laser-ultrasonic technique compared to conventional ultrasonics, are 
its non-contact character (it can be applied on hot and moving materials), the ease of 
changing the generation and detection spot geometries according to the type of wave to 
be measured, the large bandwidth of signals, and the absence of a coupling medium 
such as water that could give rise to erroneous measurements on porous coatings. 
 
2. Characterization of WC-Co coatings  
Thermal spraying of WC-Co presents a cost-effective solution for depositing coatings to 
reduce wear and corrosion. High velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) thermal spray WC-Co 
  
coatings are also an excellent replacement for hard chromium electroplating. In this 
section, it is introduced WC-Co coatings characterization by solving an inverse problem 
with an optimization procedure to minimize the difference between the measured and 
calculated Rayleigh wave dispersion curves. This concept has already been used, with 
some degree of success, for the characterization of thermal sprayed coatings [2] and 
other coatings [3]. A broader review of previous works can be found in Ref. 4. 
 
Laser-ultrasonics allows generation and detection of surface waves of both longitudinal 
(sometimes called surface skimming longitudinal wave (SSLW) or P-wave) and 
Rayleigh modes as shown in Figure 1a. The Rayleigh wave amplitude decreases with 
depth and this decrease depends on the wavelength (or frequency). Long wavelengths 
(low frequency) penetrate deeper in the material while shorter wavelengths (high 
frequency) propagate closer to the surface, making this technique very attractive for 
characterizing materials with depth dependent properties like coatings. 
 
The velocity dispersion of Rayleigh waves propagating in a coated material can be 
calculated if the thickness, elastic constants and density of both coating and substrate 
are known. Figure 1b shows a curve calculated with values expected for a WC-Co 
coating on a steel substrate. The Rayleigh velocity dispersion curve tends to the 
Rayleigh velocity in steel at low frequency and to the Rayleigh velocity in WC-Co at 
high frequency. Note that this dispersion curve presents a minimum at intermediate 
frequencies. This minimum comes from the important difference between the density 
value of the WC-Co coating and that of the steel substrate.  
1 2 3
-0.02
-0.01
0.00
0.01
0.02
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D
is
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Time (µs)
  
0 5 10 15 20
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2.9
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VR layer
R
a
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(km
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Frequency (MHz)
VR substrat
 
Figure 1. (a) Typical experimental signal of surface acoustic waves obtained in a WC-Co coating and (b) 
Rayleigh velocity dispersion as calculated by a model for a WC-Co coating on a steel substrate. 
 
 
Simulations shows that changes of the dispersion curve due to the coating thickness and 
density are readily recognizable, but the measure of two independent elastic constants is 
not robust as different combinations of Young’s modulus and shear modulus can result 
in similar dispersion curves. Fortunately, laser-ultrasonics also produces a longitudinal 
mode propagating near the surface as shown in the signal measured on a WC-Co 
coating in Figure 1a. When propagating only or mostly in the coating, it can provide an 
independent measure that, combined with the Rayleigh wave, will result in a full and 
robust characterization of elastic properties of an isotropic material.  
 
Longitudinal 
surface wave Rayleigh 
wave 
(a) (b) 
  
Eight samples were obtained by variation of the processing parameters. The WC-
12%Co agglomerated and sintered feedstock was deposited by HVOF on low-carbon 
steel substrates. The thicknesses of the samples were measured by optical microscopy of 
cross-sectioned samples and are in the range of 190 to 360 µm. The porosity was found 
to be below 1% for all samples. The laser-ultrasonic experimental set-up is presented in 
Figure 2. A pulsed Nd:YAG laser (3rd harmonic: 355 nm wavelength, 35 ps pulse 
duration) is employed to generate a Rayleigh wave in the ablation regime. For the 
detection, a long-pulsed Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm wavelength, 200 µs pulse duration) is 
coupled to an InP:Fe photorefractive interferometer [5] by optical fibers. This 
photorefractive interferometer provides good sensitivity on unpolished surfaces and 
good response to lower ultrasonic frequencies. A line-source and line-detection 
configuration is used with line dimensions of about 10 mm long by 50 µm wide for both 
the generation and detection.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 2. The laser-ultrasonic setup. 
 
In Figure 3a, the inverse problem results are shown for three of these samples, where 
the squares, circles and triangles are the experimental data and the solid lines are the 
Rayleigh velocity dispersion curves calculated with the optimal values. The thickness, 
the density, the Young’s modulus and the Poisson’s ratio found with the technique are 
indicated in the figure. In Figure 3b, the thicknesses measured with laser-ultrasonics and 
with an optical microscope after sectioning the sample are compared. The straight line 
indicates the case of a perfect correlation between the two thickness measurements. It is 
observed that the data points are well along the straight line, thus indicating an excellent 
correlation. Note that, for such coatings, the thickness is not perfectly uniform and their 
variations observed by optical microscopy are indicated by the error bars representing 
plus or minus one standard deviation. The error bars for the laser-ultrasonic measures 
are obtained from the variations with different propagation distances.  
 
The coating of one of the eight samples was separated from the substrate for further 
measurements. Its density, as measured by Archimedes’s method, was found to be 13.4 
g/cm3, which is very close to the value of 13.5 g/cm3 obtained by laser-ultrasonics. The 
Young’s modulus was measured for this sample by a three-point bending test and found 
to be 318 GPa with an estimated accuracy of ±10%. This is somewhat different than the 
value of 300 GPa found by laser-ultrasonics, but well within the measurement error of 
Detection laser: Pulsed 
Nd:YAG (1064 nm, 200 µs) 
Interferometer: two-wave 
mixing InP:Fe photorefractive 
Translation stage 
Sample 
Generation laser: Pulsed 
Nd:YAG (355 nm, 35 ps) 
Optical fiber 
λ/4 Polarizer 
Dichroic 
Lens 
Data processing 
  
such a bending test. The precision on the Young’s modulus of the proposed laser-
ultrasonic method estimated from different propagation distances is about 2%. This 
accuracy could not be verified by an independent method due to the intrinsic inaccuracy 
of available techniques. 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 3.  (a) Example of optimization results, where the symbols represent experimentally obtained 
velocity dispersion and the solid lines are the optimal fitting curves from the model. (b) Thickness 
obtained by laser-ultrasonics (LUS) compared to that obtained by optical microscopy. 
 
3. Elastic property measurements on thermal barrier coatings 
Thermal sprayed barrier coatings (TBCs) are widely used in gas turbine components 
and have always exhibited an important challenge to their ultrasonic nondestructive 
characterization. The thermal barrier properties come from the network of cracks and 
voids that create barriers to heat propagation. As the cracks are not randomly oriented, 
the properties of thermal barrier coatings are in most cases very anisotropic. It is 
common to assume the anisotropic symmetry of TBCs as transversely isotropic (analog 
to hexagonal structure), where the elastic constants in the plane (axes 1 and 2) of the 
coating are independent of direction but different from the properties in the direction 
perpendicular to the coating surface (axis 3). The results presented in this section are 
limited to the in-plane (C11) and through-thickness (C33) elastic constants.  
 
Commercially available 8 wt% yttria-stabilized zirconia powder was thermal sprayed on 
a steel substrate with a plasma torch using a wide range of spray parameter settings. The 
tested samples were produced for a study of the effect of some projection parameters on 
the final properties of TBCs, and more details can be found in Ref. 6. The laser-
ultrasonic measurements of surface acoustic waves were done in the configuration 
shown in Figure 2, and the through-thickness measurements were done in a 
transmission configuration where the ultrasonic waves are generated on the coating and 
detected on the opposite substrate surface. To obtain a simple elastic constant in the 
through-thickness and in-plane directions, only the arrival of the first echo in each 
waveform is measured. The elastic constants are calculated from the measured 
velocities assuming a fixed value of the density of 4.7 g/cm3.   
 
200 240 280 320 360
200
240
280
320
360
Th
ic
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m
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LU
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SA
W
Thickness measured with optical microscopy
y=x
5 10 15 20
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
3.0
 Optimal fit
 h = 367 µm; ρ = 14.2 g/cm3; E = 311 GPa; ν = 0.30
 h = 251 µm; ρ = 13.4 g/cm3; E = 321 GPa; ν = 0.29
 h = 205 µm; ρ = 12.9 g/cm3; E = 325 GPa; ν = 0.28
Ra
yle
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h 
ve
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(m
m
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s)
Frequency (MHz)(a) (b) 
  
Figure 4 shows the through-thickness versus in-plane elastic constants measured in 
many samples produced with different processing conditions and various thermal 
treatments. The strong correlation between the elastic constants obtained in the two 
directions is very clear, suggesting that even if five elastic constants are necessary to 
fully characterize this anisotropic coating, the measurement of only one constant could 
provide a good indication of the other elastic constants of the coating. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4. Through-thickness versus in-plane thermal barrier elastic moduli for various processing 
conditions and heat treatments (as sprayed and heat treated for 1, 5 and 20 hours at 1400 ºC). 
 
 
4. Detection of cracks and disbonding in WC-Co coatings 
 
Another important aspect of the non-destructive evaluation of coatings is the detection 
and sizing of discontinuities. A thermal sprayed WC-Co coating sample with vertical 
cracks (Figure 5a) was scanned with laser generation and detection spots separated by 
about 0.5 mm. The laser-ultrasonic configuration is essentially the same as that of 
Figure 2.. The presence of the crack will block the propagation of the surface acoustic 
waves. The measurement of a waveform parameter like the amplitude of the Rayleigh 
wave, can easily identify the zones with and without cracks. Figure 5a shows the 
variations of a waveform parameter along a sample, and the distance between the peaks 
is found to be the same as the distance between cracks measured by metallography in 
the sample cross section. 
 
Also, if there is a complete disbonding between the coating and the substrate, the 
coating when excited by the generation laser will vibrate like a membrane. This 
vibration can be readily detected with a system responding at sufficiently low 
frequencies [7]. Signals obtained on a WC-Co coating in a region where there is good 
adhesion show clear differences from signals of a region where the coating is detached. 
In the tested sample, there were large oscillations at about 200 kHz on the signals of the 
detached area. Figure 5b shows a plot of the vibration amplitude over a line scan taken 
in a region where the coating is partially detached from the substrate. The regions with 
disbonding can be readily distinguished.      
 
 
Generation 
Detection 
Generation 
laser beam 
Detection 
laser beam 
d 
0
50
100
150
200
250
0 50 100 150 200 250
E, in-plane (GPa)
E,
 
th
ro
u
gh
 
th
ic
kn
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(G
Pa
)
As Sprayed
1h
5h
20h
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 5. Laser-ultrasonic detection of cracks in WC-Co coatings. (a) Cross-sectional view of a sample 
with the generation/detection scheme, and variation of a waveform parameter along the sample. (b) 
Profile of the vibration amplitude in a region where the coating is partially detached from the substrate. 
 
5. Conclusion 
 
The laser-ultrasonic technique presents many advantages over conventional ultrasonics 
for thermal spray coating characterization. First of all, it is a fully non-contact 
technique, eliminating all the inconveniences of direct-contact or immersion techniques. 
Another major advantage is its easy control of the generation and detection laser spots 
that provides a powerful flexibility to efficiently generate and detect different wave 
modes, like surface acoustic waves. The technique also provides unmatched broadband 
and meaningful sensitivity if sufficiently powerful lasers are used. The limitations of the 
technique are mainly related to its complexity and cost, while the laser security and 
surface damage can be a challenge for some applications. The examples presented in 
this paper show that laser-ultrasonics can provide outstanding performance for different 
problems of non-destructive characterization of coatings.   
 
References 
1. G. W. Farnell and E. L. Adler, Physical Acoustics, Academic Press, New York, Vol 2, 1972. 
2. A. Abbate, W. Russell, J. Goldman, P. Kotidis and C. C. Berndt, ‘Nondestructive Determination of 
Thickness and Elastic Modulus of Plasma Spray Coatings Using Laser Ultrasonics’ Rev. of Progr. in 
Quant. Nondestr. Eval., Thompson and Chimenti, eds., Vol. 18, Plenum, NY, pp. 373-380, 1999. 
3. D. Schneider and T. Schwarz, ‘A Photoacoustic Method for Characterising Thin Films’ Surf.  and 
Coat. Technol.  Vol 91, pp 136-146, 1997. 
4. C. Bescond, S. E. Kruger, D. Lévesque, R. S. Lima, and B. R. Marple ‘In-Situ Simultaneous 
Measurement of Thickness, Elastic Moduli and Density of Thermal Sprayed WC-Co Coatings by 
Laser-Ultrasonics’ Journal of Thermal Spray Technology, 16, 2007, pp. 238-244. 
5. P. Delaye, A. Blouin, D. Drolet, L.-A. de Montmorillon, G. Roosen and J.-P. Monchalin, ‘Detection 
of ultrasonic motion of scattering surface by photorefractive InP:Fe under an applied dc field’ J. Opt. 
Soc. Am. B, Vol 14, 1997, pp. 1723-1734 
6. B. R. Marple, R. S. Lima, C. Moreau, S. E. Kruger, L. Xie, M. Dorfman, ‘Processing and Properties 
of Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia TBCs Produced Using Nitrogen as Primary Plasma Gas’ Thermal Spray 
2007, Ed by. B.R. Marple et al, ASM International®, Materials Park, Ohio, USA, pp. 405-410, 2007. 
7. A. Blouin, B. Campagne, C Néron and J.-P. Monchalin, ‘Detection of Skin Disbond in Honeycombs 
and Coating Detachment by Laser Acoustic Technique’ Rev. of Progr. in Quant. Nondestr. Eval, D.O. 
Thompson and D.E. Chimenti, Eds. Vol 26, API, pp 1140-1147, 2007. 
(a) 
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Laser-Ultrasonic Evaluation of Thermal Spray Coatings

Laser-Ultrasonic Evaluation of Thermal Spray Coatings

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