Abstract It is difficult to establish structure-property relationships in thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) because of their inhomogeneous-geometry microstructures caused by defects. In the current research, the effects of pores and cracks on the effective thermal conductivity of TBCs are studied. Based on the law of the conservation of energy, mathematical formulations are proposed to indicate the relationship between defects and the effective thermal conductivity. In this approach, detailed equations are illustrated to represent the shape and size of defects on the effective thermal conductivity of TBCs. Different from traditional empirical analyses, mixture law or statistical method, for the first time, our results with the aid of finite element method (FEM) and strict analytical calculation show the influence of pore radius and crack length on effective thermal conductivity can be quantified. As an example to a typical microstructure of plasma sprayed TBCs, the effects of defects on the effective thermal conductivity of TBCs are expressed by the influence parameter, which indicating that the longest transverse crack dominates the contribution of the effective thermal conductivity along the spray direction compared with any individual defect.