Nuclear high-temperature resistant ceramic materials have been widely used in nuclear energy, military, and aerospace fields in recent years owing to their excellent thermal insulation and high-temperature oxidation resistance.

This study aims to investigate the mass and heat transfer process between plasma fluid and flying particles in supersonic plasma spraying during the preparation of yttrium-stabilized zirconia thermal barrier coatings, so as to reveal the process parameters of flying particles.

Firstly, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach was employed to simulate the interaction between flying particles in the plasma spraying process. Then, a three-dimensional mathematical model of the plasma spraying flow field was established, and the jet characteristics of different spraying parameters in the de Laval nozzle and the melting and stress state of flying particles were analyzed by using this model. Furthermore, the online monitoring device Spray Watch 2i (Osier, Finland) was used to compare the online measurement of the velocity and temperature of flying particles obtained with the simulation results.

The comparison results show that relative errors are within 15%, verifying the simulation results effectively by experimental results. When the spraying power is reduced from 71 kW to 36 kW (i.e., reduced by 49.2%), the maximum velocity of the plasma jet is reduced by 8.5%, and the maximum temperature is reduced by 22.2%.

A correlation between plasma spraying parameters, jet characteristics, and melting of flying particles is revealed in this study, providing theoretical guidance for the precise control of high-performance thermal insulation coating structures required for accident resistant fuel cladding in nuclear reactions.