Investigation of Aluminum Coating with Dispersed Nanoscale Quasicrystalline Particles Produced by Cold Spray

In this study, an aluminum coating with dispersed quasicrystalline particles is produced by cold spraying. The spraying was done using helium gas at a temperature of 400 °C. The obtained coating exhibited a relatively precise microstructure with almost no macroscopic voids. X-ray and TEM analyses confirmed that the coating retained its quasicrystal structure on the surface as well as internally. TEM analysis also revealed that metallic bonding occurred at powder-powder and powder-substrate interfaces. Although the hardness of the coating was higher than that of extruded bulk alloy, tensile strength was found to be much lower, which is attributed to defects at particle-particle interfaces.