Abstract
Deposition of a dense coating with solid particles by cold spraying requires sufficient deformation of impacting particles and previously deposited underlying particles. The cermet particles and subsequent coating with a high hardness are difficult to deform upon impact. To increase the ability of deformation, the cermet spray particles with a porous structure design is proposed to fulfill the requirements of deformation on impact. To understand the deposition mechanism, the deposition behavior of single WC-Co spray particles impacting on the substrates with different hardnesses during cold spraying were examined using WC-12Co powders with different porosity. The substrates include stainless steel, nickel-based self-fluxing alloy coatings were employed to examine the effect of substrate deformation on the cermet particle deposition. It was found that using two porous powder of the porosity of 30% and 44% the WC-Co cermet particles were deposited on the substrate of different hardness from 200Hv to 800Hv. The deposition of the particles is mainly attributed to the deformation of powders themselves. The properly designed porous cermet powder with certain hardness is necessary condition to deposit hard WC-Co cermet coating.
