With a lot of coatings a thickness will be reached where the tensile stresses will exceed that of the bond strength or cohesive strength and coating failure will occur. High shrink materials like some austenitic stainless steels are prone to high levels of stress build up and thus have low thickness limitations. Look out for thickness limitation information on coating data sheets. Generally thin coatings are more durable than thick coatings. Spraying method and coating microstructure influence the level of stress build up in coatings.
Dense coatings are generally more stressed than porous coatings.
Notice that Combustion powder sprayed coatings generally have greater thickness limitations than plasma coatings. This comparison generally shows coating properties in a bad light, and does not take into consideration that coatings are usually supported by a substrate. Coatings are generally only used to give surface properties such as wear resistance and not to add strength. Due to the small quantity of material required for a coating, more exotic materials can be used economically. The properties of some coatings cannot be fabricated by any other method.