Abstract
A new method for evaluating the tensile adhesive strength of thermal sprayed coatings has been developed using a test specimen that incorporates an artificially introduced circumferential crack to control the stress intensity factor at the crack tip along the interface between the coating and the substrate. FEM-analysis is carried out to calculate a correction factor and the stress intensity factor for the test specimen. When the results of tensile test are sorted out using the stress intensity factor at which failure occurred, constant values should be obtained regardless of changes in geometry such as crack length and the diameter of test specimen. The method was first applied to air plasma spray (APS) coatings and then to HVOF sprayed coatings. Effects of substrate preparation such as surface roughness and preheating temperature on the resultant coating adhesion were studied experimentally.
