“…Laboratory evaluations of TBCs typically begins with furnace cycle testing (FCT) where a cycle consists of heating acoated coupon in a furnace and holding for a period time (e.g., 1 or 100 h) at a fixed temperature without a temperature gradient across the coating followed by cooling to near room temperature. Our previous work has utilized FCT to study the effect of bond coating composition [4], roughness [5], superalloy composition [6], gas composition [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and cycle frequency [8,9] on TBC lifetime.However, in some studies the FCT results were not statistically significant and, without a thermal gradient, FCT has limited value for evaluating multi-layer or low thermal conductivity top coatings.…”