Acoustic emission (AE) technique was adopted to monitor the damage evolution of air plasma- sprayed (APS) yttria-partially-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) during instrumented indentation testing,and then the failure mechanisms were investigated by cluster analysis and wavelet transform methods. The results of cluster analysis showed that there were three classes associated with distinct failure types for the 8YSZ coatings under Vickers indentation. Based on wavelet transform, these three clusters could be clearly distinguished from their dominant frequency bands,which were concentrated on levels A5(0–156.25 kHz),D5 (156.25–312.5 kHz)and D4(312.5–625 kHz),respectively.Thus,the failure mechanism of 8YSZ coatings under Vickers indentation could be clarified by the distribution of different failure types in indentation depth.To sum up, as indentation load increases, the 8YSZ coatings can accommodate the indenter by elastic or little plastic deformation, microcracks propagation and then debonding at the splat boundaries. By comparing the dis-tribution of AE signals induced by different failure types in indentation depth for samples with different thermal exposure time,it can be inferred that thermal exposure treatment can accelerate the degradation of APS 8YSZ TBCs.