Abstract
The demand of industry for metallic thermal sprayed coatings with controlled porosity until now is fulfilled by the spraying of metallic powders mixed with additives (organic element in many cases) which play the role of pores. The new technology of cold spray can lead to the formation of innovate coatings of controlled porosity by using pure metallic (or alloy) powder without any further addition. A fine Al-12Si powder (<45 µm) was sprayed with a cold spray system (CGT Kinetic 3000-M) on stainless steel substrate under different spraying conditions. In the present study, the new polymeric nozzle PBI-33 of CGT was used for the formation of al-based coatings. The microstructure, the porosity, the Vickers microhardness and the superficial Rockwell hardness (R15Y) of the produced coatings are examined.
