Patent ID: 8802199

Claim:
A method of forming a segmented ceramic spray coating on a substrate, comprising: providing one or more heat sources disposed proximate to a substrate; depositing a quantity of a first ceramic material into a heat stream of said one or more heat sources and onto a deposition area of a surface of said substrate to form by thermal spraying a first ceramic material layer; depositing one or more quantities of additional ceramic material into said heat stream to form by thermal spraying one or more additional layers of ceramic material; as movement of the substrate relative to the one or more heat sources moves the deposition area along the substrate, in advance of said depositing said one or more quantities of additional ceramic material, applying said heat stream to preheat without re-melt a thermal gradient zone located in front of a deposition area for one or more quantities of additional material to expand said first ceramic material and deposited said additional layers so that the depositing of said one or more quantities of additional ceramic material is onto a preheated expanded deposited material; cooling said one or more additional layers of ceramic materials to promote vertical crack propagation of existing cracks therein.