Ceramic coatings are thin ceramic layers applied to substrate material surfaces through specialized processes, designed to impart specific physical and chemical properties to the substrate surface. The development of this technology began in the 1950s, initially to meet the high-temperature protection demands of the aerospace field. With advancements in surface engineering technology, ceramic coatings have now developed into an important interdisciplinary technological field. Material systems include yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), rare-earth zirconates, and others.

However, the development of ceramic coatings has lagged far behind the application of coating materials. Apart from surface hardness, performance testing for various ceramic coating properties—including elastic modulus, coating strength, expansion coefficient, density, and interfacial bonding strength—was largely nonexistent. Before 2010, the performance testing of ceramic coatings both domestically and internationally was characterized by a "three-no" state: no methods, no equipment, and no standards. The greatest difficulty in testing ceramic coating performance is their detachment from the substrate material; even when detachment is possible, testing physical properties as with monolithic bulk materials is challenging. In 2010, the ISO/TC 206 Advisory Committee proposed establishing a Ceramic Coatings Working Group to solicit ceramic coating testing technologies worldwide. Concurrently, our research group proposed the relative method on behalf of China, first addressing the need for ceramic coating performance testing, and the related achievements were subsequently transformed into multiple ISO standards, filling the gap in the ceramic coating testing field.