Abstract: The causes of residual stress in plasma sprayed coating are mainly the thermal gradient in deposited layers and the different heat expansion coefficients of coating and substrate. Taking account of the increment in thickness of each layer sprayed, an analytical model of temperature field was developed for the sprayed particles in their deposition process, where the composite effects of heat transfer and thermal radiation on the coating were also considered. Thus, the coating's temperature field was calculated for different substrate-coating systems. The results revealed that temperature rise during the deposition of layers can be divided into two stages, i.e., the temperature of the substrate-coating system does not exceed 15% the melting point of the material being sprayed; the temperature of the system rises continuously and achieves the maximum value after the heat balance between the substrate and coating, then the residual stress forms on the interface between substrate and coating.