Abstract
In order to produce plasma sprayed coatings with best economical, technical and environmental qualities several factors need to be taken into consideration. These include properties of the powder feedstock, equipment reliability, optimized process parameters and stability of the spray process. In case of plasma spray guns with conventional and frequently used radial powder feeding configurations, proper and constant powder feeding during spraying plays an important role. Once optimized spray parameters need to be preserved and optimal spray conditions for best coating quality and highest deposition efficiency should also be kept constant during possible changes of the spray parameters, e.g. due to electrode wear, powder quality variations etc. Various spray process monitoring tools are available and useful for this purpose; especially if they are cost-effective to be adopted by industrial thermal sprayers. In the present work, a conventional 40 kW plasma spray process equipped with a typical radial single point powder feeding was studied with the robust and industrially viable “SprayWatch G” system with an on-line monitoring CCD camera. The plasma spray torch was run under slightly varying spray conditions typical to normal industrial spraying; the spray process was monitored, and various actions, e.g. powder carrier gas flow rate adjustment, were realized in order to restore the most optimum conditions. Special attention was paid on finding correlations between the temperature, brightness, shape, and direction of the spray plume and the properties, e.g. deposition efficiency and physical properties of the sprayed alumina coatings.
