This paper evaluates the cavitation erosion wear rate and failure modes of WC-10Co-4Cr coatings. These coatings are used in various industrial applications to protect against erosive, abrasive, sliding and cavitation wear in corrosive environments. Cavitation erosion tests were performed using a modified ASTM G-32 cavitation test rig. Thermally sprayed High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (HVOF) WC-Co-Cr coatings were deposited using industrially optimised coating process parameters on carbon steel and stainless-steel substrate coupons. Coatings were tested to simulate the cavitation bubbles occurring in valves, pumps, and ship propellers. Indirect cavitation was used to impact the cavitation bubbles on the test specimen at a fixed offset distance from the vibrator end. Test specimens were immersed in natural seawater. A water circulation cooling system was used to control the temperature of the water. The cumulative mass cavitation erosion and erosion rate results were evaluated. The coating microstructure was analysed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and x-ray diffraction. Post-test evaluations included SEM observation in combination with energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX) to understand the failure modes. Results are discussed in terms of the factors controlling the cavitation erosion rate.

Iron-based coatings are often considered as replacement of hard chromium and WC-Co, as they pose lower health and environmental impact. In many cases the combination of mechanical and chemical properties of ferrous based alloys may be satisfactory and their relatively low cost make these coatings an interesting candidate for many applications. This study is inspired by opportunities to harden the ferrous base materials by strain hardening, solid solution strengthening, dispersion strengthening, and precipitation hardening. Already commercially available Fe-based coating materials with precipitates of mixed carbides and borides in the metastable austenitic matrix achieve a high hardness. In this study the cavitation erosion and abrasion resistance of various Fe-based coatings produced by HVAF and HVOF processes were investigated. Two experimental precipitation containing materials were prepared, and the sprayed coatings were tested for abrasive and cavitation erosion wear. In addition to precipitations, the importance of proportion of ferrite and retained austenite phases were studied by affecting the microstructure by heat treatments as the ability of different phases to affect hardening and ductility may become crucial in generating desired material properties. The properties of experimental and some commercial Fe-based alloys are compared with WC-Co and Cr 3 C 2 -NiCr coatings by property mapping.

This study investigates the synergistic effects of cavitation and corrosion on Cr 3 C 2 -25NiCr coatings with different levels of porosity. The coatings are deposited by HVOF spraying and evaluated based on SEM analysis, Vickers microhardness, potentiodynamic polarization measurements, and cavitation erosion tests in various environments under ultrasonic vibration. The results show that higher porosity reduces both cavitation and corrosion resistance, as expected. However, the samples did not show significant alteration of their cavitation properties in NaCl, probably because of the high corrosion resistance of the different phases in the coating. The influence of HVOF fuel-oxygen ratio and total gas flow on coating porosity, as well as phase morphology, is also discussed.

The alloys CuAl9Ni5Fe4Mn and CuMn13Al8Fe3Ni2 were arc-sprayed with a spiral-shaped pattern in this work, using both pressurized air and a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen. Process temperatures were recorded by thermographic imaging and residual stresses were measured by modified hole-drilling method. Moreover, analyses of the cavitation erosion behavior and other properties were carried out. It was found that a change in the spray pattern can strongly reduce residual stresses and material loss by cavitation erosion.

Thermally sprayed ceramic coatings are used in environments requiring good wear- and corrosion resistance among others. However, a typical issue with ceramic coatings is their low impact resistance and tendency to fail catastrophically by cracking. In bulk ceramics, the Al 2 O 3 -ZrO 2 –composition has been of interest for long since already small additions of ZrO 2 into Al 2 O 3 have shown improvements in fracture toughness compared to pure Al 2 O 3 . Efforts are being made to induce this increased resistance to fracturing in thermally sprayed coatings as well, resulting in higher wear resistance due to a more predictable behavior and damage-tolerance. In this work, Al 2 O 3 -ZrO 2 -coatings have been deposited by atmospheric plasma spray (APS) and high-velocity oxy-fuel spray (HVOF) processes. The wear characteristics of the coatings were evaluated with cavitation erosion, delving into the mechanics of the erosion and the resulting microstructural changes in the coatings. Evidence of phase transformation of t-ZrO 2 to m-ZrO 2 was found during the erosion. The HVOF-sprayed coating exhibited greater wear resistance against the cavitating bubbles due to its finer microstructure.

The mist cooling technique was developed and applied to various thermal spraying guns. For example, aluminum-magnesium coatings prepared using a gas flame thermal spraying gun with mist cooling had superior anticorrosion characteristics. Stellite coating thermally sprayed with mist cooling had higher anti-cavitation-erosion characteristics. Next, we endeavored to develop high velocity oxygen fuel guns with mist gas cooling to improve high-temperature toughness.

Cavitation erosion frequently occurs in hydraulic components such as turbines, valves, pumps, and ship propellers. Arc thermal spray processing has the possibility to be used for maintenance recovering of hydraulic blade runners. Fe-Cr-Mn-Si is a cavitation-resistant class of steel with a high concentration of oxidation elements—which can be important for arc thermally sprayed coatings—and a strain-induced phase transformation. The influence of chemical composition on oxide formation, microstructure, and cavitation resistance of Fe- Mn-Cr-Si thermally sprayed coatings was studied, and its field performance in a Francis type runner was evaluated. Microstructures and properties were investigated by XPS, XRD, optical microscopy, and ultrasonic cavitation testing. The best cavitation resistance was obtained in Fe-Mn-Cr-Si alloy with a nickel addition; this composition has lower oxide and splash droplets content and exhibits better splat wetting than Fe-Mn-Cr-Si without nickel. Strain-induced phase transformation occurred in arc thermally sprayed coatings during cavitation tests. Better performances for Fe-Mn-Cr-Si alloys, without nickel, were obtained in alloys with higher strain induced martensite contents after cavitation tests. In field tests, after 2000 operation hours, it was verified that the recovered areas presented only a small number of eroded areas, and cavitation erosion was reduced compared with uncoated areas.

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.

The cavitation erosion result mass loss. Welding is the most common technique used to recover the geometrical profile of the blades. However it is known that tensile residual stress can develop. The search for manufacture process that could reduce or eliminate the residual stress level will contribute for a longer life service. The target in this study to evaluate the potential of ASP thermal spray to recover surfaces. The influence of processing parameters on the cavitation resistance and mechanisms was evaluated for three alloys, AWS309LT1, AWS410NiMo and a Co stainless steel known as Cavitec. Coatings were analyzed by optical and electronic microscopy, microhardness and cavitation tests regarding the effect of air pressure. The results showed that lamellae morphology, oxide volume fraction and cavitation resistance were modified by the ASP parameters. The increase in the pressure modified the oxide fraction from 26 to 37% in AWSI309LT1, 23 to 31% for AWS410NiMo and 16 to 23% for Cavitec. Mass loss varied from 3.5 to 4.8 mg/h for AWSI309LT1, 6.65 to 18.19 mg/h for AWS410NiMo, and 3.4 to 4.0 mg/h for Cavitec; the best performance occurred with Cavitec and was associated with higher pressure of deposition and minor oxide volume fraction.

The proposed paper reports a series of experiments to investigate the cavitation erosion mechanism of HVOF coatings. Vibratory cavitation erosion tests according to ASTM G 32 have been carried out with several HVOF coatings including cermets, oxides and metallic alloys. The steady state erosion rate for each coating was determined and the effect of coating composition and microstructure on the erosion rate was investigated. The morphology and microstructure of the various coatings before and after cavitation testing were analyzed by means of light optical and scanning electron microscopy in order to study the erosion mechanism. The results demonstrate that HVOF coatings of NiCrFeBSi, WC-17Co, Cr 3 C 2 -25NiCr and Cr 2 O 3 can exhibit a rather high resistance against cavitation erosion and should be considered for application as a protective surface layer against cavitation. Furthermore, it is shown that cavitation testing can provide a useful tool to study and characterize the bond strength between individual splats as well as the brittleness of the individual phases present in the coating.

Water turbine parts damaged by cavitation erosion (CE) and/or slurry erosion (SE) may cause excessive operational costs for plants worldwide. The damages can be reduced by choosing more resistant materials and right technology in the first-production or at repair and overhaul. Thermal spray technologies have a great potential in the field of repairing works. Thick multilayered coatings deposited by wire electric arc spraying (WAS) has been developed and applied as CE and SE protection at the repair of stationary Francis turbine blades. Repair technology by WAS was performed on large eroded areas (1-3 m 3 ) of preguide blades of Francis turbine: 1) local damaged depths 30-35 mm maximum were repaired by sprayed materials, 2) subsequently wire arc spraying of functional coating was applied. Three types of functional coatings with total thickness 10 mm a) duplex high - Cr stainless steel with NiAl bond coat, b) graded NiAl - Cr stainless steel coatings, and c) multilayered graded NiAl - Cr stainless steel coatings were compared by means of stress measurements and structural analysis. The coating structure influences very strongly the residual stress level and adhesive-cohesive strength. Multilayered graded NiAl - Cr stainless steel coatings showed the best results and were sprayed on water turbine blades in 4 Czech water power station during regular cut-off repair periods. After 30 - 36 months' continuous operation, Francis turbine blades repaired by WAS technology show better behaviour in comparison with original material from the point of wear resistance, reliability, cost-effect and life-time.