A durability testing method under thermo-mechanical stress for thermal barrier coatings (TBC) specimens was designed by a combination of an electric furnace and a tensile testing machine, which was done on TBCs on NIMONIC 263 substrates by an atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) deposition method. The testing conditions were chosen according to a preliminary experiment that identified the elastic deformation region of the top coating and the substrate during mechanical loading. Surface cracking and a decrease in the thickness of the top coating, which are typical degradation behaviors under conventional thermal shock testing, were observed after the designed thermal fatigue test, and delamination at the top coating-bond coating interface occurred by the mechanical load. Lifetime assessment was conducted by statistical software using lifecycle data which were obtained after the thermal fatigue test.