High velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) combustion spraying has previously been shown to be a viable method for depositing polymer and polymer/ceramic composite coatings. The addition of hard particulate reinforcing phases to soft polymeric matrices should improve their durability and wear performance. Nano-sized diamond is an ideal reinforcing phase, owing to its high hardness and desirable thermal properties. Composite coatings comprising a Nylon-11 matrix reinforced with nanodiamonds have been successfully produced by HVOF. An important challenge is preserving the structure of the nanoparticles after thermal spray deposition and achieving a uniform dispersion of them within the polymeric matrix. Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction confirmed the presence and retention of nanodiamonds after HVOF deposition. Understanding of the role of variables including the % loading of reinforcing phase in the matrix and powder preparation route are necessary. The coatings exhibited improved sliding wear resistance in macromechanical tests. Nanoindentation studies demonstrated an improvement in deformation behavior and recovery of the HVOF nanodiamond Nylon-11/nanodiamond composites subjected to deformation.

High Velocity Suspension Flame Spraying (HVSFS) has been developed to thermally spray suspensions containing micron, sub micron and nanoparticles with hypersonic speed. For this purpose, the suspension is introduced directly into the combustion chamber of a modified HVOF torch. The aim in mind is to achieve dense coatings with a refined microstructure. Especially from nanostructured coatings superior physical properties are expected for many potential applications. Direct spraying of suspensions offers flexibility in combining and processing different materials. It is a cost saving process and allows the allocation of entirely new application fields. The paper gives an overview of the HVSFS spray method and will present some actual results that have been achieved by spraying the nanooxide ceramic materials Al 2 O 3 , TiO 2 , 3YSZ and Cr 2 O 3 .

The warm spray gun was developed to make a coating of temperature-sensitive material, such as titanium, on a substrate. The gun has a combustion chamber followed by a mixing chamber, in which the combustion gas is mixed with the nitrogen gas at room temperature. The temperature in the gun can be controlled in the range of about 1500 - 2500 K by adjusting the mass flow rate of nitrogen gas. The mixed gas is accelerated to supersonic speed through a converging-diverging nozzle followed by a straight passage. In this paper, the performance of the warm spray gun is investigated by the simulation program in order to deeply understand the performance of the warm spray gun. The gas flow as well as the velocity and temperature of titanium particle inside and outside the gun are predicted by the numerical simulation.

The High-Velocity Suspension Flame Spraying (HVSFS) technique, a recently-developed modification to the standard HVOF process enabling the use of suspension feedstock, was employed in order to deposit Al 2 O 3 coatings from a nanopowder suspension. These coatings were compared to conventional APS and HVOF-sprayed ones. HVSFS coatings possess lower overall porosity and lower pore interconnectivity degree. Indeed, most of the nanoparticles were fully melted by the gas jet, thus forming very thin, well-flattened lamellae, having smaller columnar crystals than conventional coatings. Accordingly, HVSFS coatings possess higher hardness and elastic modulus, as determined from nanoindentation tests. Ball-on-disk tribological tests also indicate that HVSFS coatings possess much better sliding wear resistance than conventional ones, because they are capable of forming denser and more protective surface tribofilms during dry sliding.

The application of FGMs is quite difficult, but thermal spray processes like Plasma spray have demonstrated their unique potential in producing graded deposits, where researchers have used twin powder feed systems to mix different proportions of powders. FGMs vary in composition and/or microstructure from one boundary (substrate) to another (top service surface), and innovative characteristics result from the gradient from metals to ceramics or non-metallic to metals. The present study investigates an innovative modification of a HVOF (High Velocity Oxy- Fuel) thermal spray process to produce functionally graded thick coatings. In order to deposit thick coatings, certain problems have to be overcome. Graded coatings enable gradual variation of the coating composition and/or microstructure, which offers the possibility of reducing residual stress build-up with in coatings. In order to spray such a coating, modification to a commercial powder feed hopper was required to enable it to deposit two powders simultaneously which allows deposition of different layers of coating with changing chemical compositions, without interruption to the spraying process. Various concepts for this modification were identified and one design was selected, having been validated through use of a process model, developed using ANSYS Flotran Finite Element Analysis. In the current research the mixing of different proportions of powders were controlled by a computer using LabVIEW software and hardware, which allowed the control and repeatability of the microstructure when producing functionally graded coatings.

High velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) sprayed cermet coatings are required in various industrial fields due to their excellent properties, such as combination of wear resistance, corrosion resistance, high hardness, high bonding strength and stability under high temperature. In order to utilize them in the fields, optimization of composition and structure of the coatings are essentially important meaning that both spray powders and spray conditions are key process parameters. In this paper, developed spray powders of cermet materials are introduced for the specific applications, where 1. cavitation erosion, 2. mechanical impact, 3. corrosion by molten alloy and 4. general abrasive wear are major factors that damage the coatings. In order to solve these factors, HVOF coatings of 1. WC/Co/Cr with large WC particle, 2. WC/Cr 3 C 2 /Ni with addition of metal or alloy, 3. MoB/CoCr composed of double boride and 4. WC particle size in WC based cermet, are proposed and these merits are described.