The present paper involves comprehensive investigations towards an understanding on how aggressive environments, high service temperatures and long dwell times affect damage growth and lifetime reduction of different components of automotive combustion engines and aero-engines made out of gamma titanium aluminides with protective coatings. The outcome of this paper is related to the practical recommendations on how damage growth at high temperatures in multilayer thin films on gamma titanium aluminides under thermal cyclic conditions and multiaxial stress state may be controlled in order to reduce environmental degradation, optimize the protective coating and extend lifetime of a component for automotive, energy and aerospace applications.
