Abstract
Thermal sprayed coatings often need to be removed for maintenance, repair or recycling and are accomplished by various conventional methods such as grinding, abrasive blasting and chemical removal processes. The coating removal for repair is typically done for expensive and/or very complex parts. Parts of turbines, equipped with functional coatings, are stripped for inspection and repair as well as old coatings are renewed. When removing a thermal sprayed coating, damage to the part or ablation of the substrate must be avoided. A new process of dry ice blasting alone as well as in combination with a laser beam in a hybrid process has been approved for the removal of thermal sprayed coatings in a project aided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment via the Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AIF). The aim of the project is to obtain the properties for the comparison and benchmarking of coating removal processes. Comparative studies have been made with the water jet and the abrasive water jet process at the Institute of Materials Science of the University of Hanover.
