Nuclear power plants benefit from thermal spray coatings for corrosion and erosion minimization and dimensional restoration of worn parts. This article provides a detailed discussion on the advantages of thermal spray coatings, fission reactor component coatings, and coatings for nuclear fuel processing before and after irradiation for power plant applications. Nuclear fusion research is divided into two primary fields of study categorized by the method for confining the fusion fuel: magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion.

The thermal spray community serves the printing industry with a variety of protective coatings applied on behalf of original equipment makers and end users. This article describes the applications of thermal spray coating for printing equipment such as engraver rolls, plate and blanket cylinders, corona rolls, and draw rolls.

This article describes the process of selecting an optimum coating and material system for a specific application. It reviews critical coating functions that influence the coating selection process, and presents some application success stories. The article explores the benefits of thermal spray coatings and functions they provide. It also presents key references from various National Thermal Spray Conference, United Thermal Spray Conference, and International Thermal Spray Conference Proceedings from 2006 through 2012.

This article reviews the use of thermal spray polymer coatings as a replacement for paints. It discusses the applications of the thermal spray forming process. The article also provides information on the applications of thermal spray in metal processing, textile and plastics, and ceramic and glass manufacturing industries.

This article is a brief guide to information sources on thermal spray technology. The sources provided by ASM International and the Thermal Spray Society (TSS) include magazines and journals as well as reference books, including the ASM Handbook series, conference proceedings, newsletters, education courses, and videos. The article provides information on the specifications, standards, and quality control for coatings.

Thermal spray processes involve complete or partial melting of a feedstock material in a high-temperature flame, and propelling and depositing the material as a coating on a substrate. This article describes the properties of sprayed electronic materials, including dielectrics, conductors, and resistors, and discusses their implications and associated limitations for device applications and potential remedial measures. The article presents specific examples of electrical/electronic device applications, including electromagnetic interference/radio-frequency interference shielding, planar microwave devices, waveguide devices, sensing devices, solid oxide fuel cells, heating elements, electrodes for capacitors and other electrochemical devices.

The use of thermal spray coatings to restore worn surfaces has provided a significant improvement in surface performance due to improved wear resistance. This article discusses the general use of thermal spray coatings in reducing predominant types of wear, namely, abrasive wear, erosive wear, adhesive wear, and surface fatigue.

Materials resulting from thermal spray processes are often different from their wrought, forged, and cast counterparts. Assessing the usefulness of thermal spray coatings requires understanding, developing, and using appropriate testing and characterization methods that are generally borrowed from other materials science disciplines. This article focuses on commonly used testing and characterization methods: metallography, image analysis, hardness, tensile adhesion testing, corrosion testing, x-ray diffraction, non-destructive testing, and powder characterization. It provides information on how the materials themselves respond to the various test methods. The article focuses on the test methods themselves, including those test parameters that can be varied and the influence of each on the results obtained.

Thermal spray is a generic term for a group of coating processes used to apply metallic, ceramic, cermet, and some polymeric coatings for a broad range of applications. This article provides a brief description of commercially important thermal spray processes, namely, powder-fed flame spray, wire- or rod-fed flame spray, electric arc spray, plasma arc spray, vacuum plasma spray, high-velocity oxyfuel spray, detonation gun deposition, and cold spray, and their advantages. It provides details on the microstructural characteristics of thermal spray coatings. The article also presents information on a wide variety of materials that can be thermal sprayed, such as metals, ceramics, intermetallics, composites, cermets, polymers, and functionally gradient materials. Tables are included, which list the thermal spray processes and coating properties of importance for various industrial applications.

This article focuses on coatings and overlays adopted for use as wear- and corrosion-resistant materials in oil sand processing. It describes the most common application processes for oil sand coatings and overlays, including welding, high-velocity oxyfuel thermal spray, laser cladding, and vacuum brazing. The article provides information on the selection of overlays and materials such as chromium-carbide-base overlays and tungsten carbide metal-matrix composites.

This article focuses on noble and neutral coatings and the requirements necessary to achieve successful industrial applications. These include corrosion and wear control and repair applications in processing and chemical industries, and valve and downhole drilling applications in the petrochemical industry. The article also discusses substrate chemistry and preparation; coating selection process and microstructure; sealing by chemical, post-heat treatments, and laser processing; and thermal spray process alternatives.

High-velocity oxyfuel (HVOF)-applied thermal spray coatings are viable candidates for replacement of hard chrome in numerous applications. HVOF thermal spraying can be used to deposit both metal alloy and cermet coatings that are dense and highly adherent to all the commonly used base metals in airframe structures. This article summarizes the results of materials and component testing. It also presents a cost/benefit analysis of HVOF WC/17Co and WC/10Co4Cr coatings on aircraft landing gear components.

This article provides information on thermal spray coating features, which combine to determine the properties of a coating. These include the lamellar or layered splat structure, entrapped unmelted or resolidified particles, pores, oxide inclusions, grains, phases, cracks, and bond interfaces. The article describes the sources of porosity and the factors that control the final coating porosity levels. The article also lists the materials most suitable for thermal spraying processes.

This article describes the benefits that can be achieved by using thermal spray on particular engine parts of an automobile. These include improvement in fuel consumption, wear resistance and bonding, and reduction of oil consumption, exhaust heat loss, and cooling heat loss. Typical engine parts are cylinder blocks, cylinder bores, cast iron cylinder liners, piston rings, connecting rod bearings, turbochargers, engine valve lifters, exhaust system parts, and oxygen sensors. The article also describes the benefits of using thermal spray on transmission parts such as synchronizer rings and torque converters.

Corrosion of marine- and land-based infrastructure is of major concern and its control forms an important objective. Thermal spray coatings (TSCs) are widely used for corrosion protection. This article focuses on two types of TSCs: cathodic or noble coatings and anodic or sacrificial coatings. It describes the factors affecting the performance of sacrificial TSCs in atmospheric and immersion environments. The article provides information on the applications of sacrificial TSCs, non-sacrificial coatings, and sealants/top coats, and exemplifies the use of sacrificial TSCs on structures for corrosion protection.

This article provides an overview of how thermal spray technology has adapted to meet the needs of the orthopaedic industry. It includes the challenges facing the development of artificial joints, substrate material selection criteria, thermal spray solutions, and clinical outcomes of thermal spray coatings. The article focuses on plasma thermal spray, which is the technique most often used to make porous titanium and hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings, such as thermal spray titanium, thermal spray HA, solution-precipitated HA, thermal spray chromium oxide, and thermal spray chromium carbide cermet coatings.

This article discusses various control processes carried out in powder feeding, thermal spraying, and gas flow of the thermal spray process to standardize the coating quality. Quality of the entire powder feeding process can be achieved by controlling the processing of feeding equipment as well as the characteristics of the powder being fed. Gas flow control can be achieved by using rotameters, critical orifices, and thermal mass flowmeters, whose ability to provide useful information is defined by their resolution, accuracy, linearity, and repeatability. The commercial thermal spray controls discussed here include the open-loop input-based, open-loop output-based, closed-loop input-based, and closed-loop output-based or adaptive controls. The article discusses the common causes and practical solutions for arc starting problems. It also outlines certain important developments in measuring individual and collective particle velocities, temperature, and trajectories as well as other plume characteristics for the plasma spray process.

Thermal spray is an important surface-modification process implemented by the steel industry. This article reviews thermal spray materials and equipment used and also provides examples of where typical coated components result in improved performance. It contains a table that lists thermal spray applications in the iron-steel manufacturing industry.