Thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of different compositions of Yttria stabilized zirconia-nickel mixtures

Ceramic-metal composites also known as functionally gradient materials (FGM) are composite materials which are fabricated in order to have a gradual variation of constituent materials’ thermal and mechanical properties so as to have a smooth variation of the material properties in order to improve the overall performance and reduce the thermal expansion mismatch between ceramic and metal. The objective of the study is to determine the thermal properties of various percentage composition of Yttria stabilized zirconia-Nickel mixtures for application as thermal barrier coating materials in automotive turbocharger turbine volute casing. Specific heat capacity of different percentage composition of ceramic-metal powder composite were determined using DSC822 differential scanning calorimeter (Mettle Tolodo, Switzerland) at temperature ranges between 303K to 873K. While the thermal conductivity of the different percentage composition of ceramic-metal composite structures were determined using P5687 Cussons thermal conductivity apparatus (Manchester, UK) which uses one-dimensional steady-state heat conduction principle. The results have indicated that the specific heat capacity of the FGM increases sharply with an increase in temperature while the thermal conductivity of the FGM decreases with an increase in temperature. These results strongly agree with the theoretical and experimental values as well as the rule of mixtures obtainable in literature, which indicated the suitability of these FGM materials for thermal barrier coating applications