Abstract
Thermal spray of polymers has had limited investigation due to the narrow processing windows that are inherent to polymer powders, especially their low temperatures of thermal degradation. The polymer poly aryl ether ether ketone (PEEK) has a high thermal degradation temperature and high resistance to alkaline and acidic attack. These properties led to PEEK being selected for investigation. To minimise thermal degradation of the particles, the high velocity air fuel (HVAF) technique was used. To investigate the effect of substrate pre-treatment on single splat properties, single splats were collected on aluminium 5052 substrates with six different pretreatments. The single splats collected were imaged by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and image analysis was performed with ImageJ, an open source scientific graphics package. On substrates held at 323°C it was found that substrate pretreatment had a significant effect on the circularity and area of single splats, and also on the number of splats deposited on the substrates. Increases in splat circularity, area, and the number of splats deposited on the surface were linked to the decrease in chemisorbed water on the substrate surface and the decrease of surface roughness. This proved that surface chemistry and roughness are crucial to forming single splats with good properties, which will lead to coatings of good properties.
