Recently, environmental concerns have initiated intensive research and development in the field of friction brake systems with the aim to minimize particle emission. First brake systems that include thermally sprayed protective coatings on grey cast iron brake disks have been introduced in automotive industries and have proven suitability to strongly reduce particle emission. However, there is desire to use materials that show better environmental compatibility and lower price and to use processes that permit improved characteristics of protective coatings at reduced production costs. Different approaches concerning choice of base and coating materials as well as production processes are discussed with respect to technological, economic and ecological aspects. Besides grey cast iron also aluminum alloys are considered as base materials. For coating production HVOF spraying and laser cladding offer specific advantages and recent progress concerning the expansion of their production rate limitations is presented. Finally, novel feedstock materials that show excellent compatibility with stainless steel or aluminum alloy matrices have been developed and applied for coating production.

This study evaluates the erosion-corrosion performance of thermal spray hardcoats on bronze-coated gray cast iron. In the experiments, gray cast iron plates are coated with a bronze powder by PTA welding and the coatings are characterized based on microstructure and corrosion and wear testing. The bronze coatings provide good corrosion protection, but are shown to be susceptible to cavitation and erosion wear. To compensate, thermal spray hardcoats, including atmospheric plasma sprayed Al 2 O 3 and Cr 2 O 3 and HVOF sprayed WC-Co, were applied over bronze-coated cast iron and corrosion and wear tests were performed. It is shown that the thermal spray hardcoats greatly improve wear resistance, but despite their interconnected porosities, do not affect the corrosion performance of the underlying bronze.

This study aims at evaluating the erosion resistance at temperature of several hard coatings, including: CrC-NiCr by HVOF, Fe-based alloy by Arc Spray, NiCrBSiFe by powder flame spraying. These coatings are to be used for the recovery of highly eroded walls (above 10 mm thickness) of gray cast iron in the exhaust ducts in heavy-fuel engines. The erosion test consists of erosive particles thrown through a high temperature gas jet, for 5 cycles of 5 minutes, according to ASTM G211-14 (modified). Coated samples are subjected to a fuel gas-torch reaching a front temperature of 450ºC and a back temperature of 90ºC (water cooled), simulating the actual application. The eroded samples are characterized using EDS, and SEM. The results show the erosion rate of each material/system, and their corresponding erosion mechanisms. Thus, the results allows for the selection of an optimum coating for this surface recovery application.

The degradation of pump components by corrosion and complex damage mechanisms, e.g. erosion and cavitation leads to high costs through replacement and maintenance of parts. To increase the lifetime of cost-efficient components with superior casting properties, gray cast iron parts are surfaced with duplex stainless steel using an inert shielding gas metal arc welding process. The dilution of the surfacing increases with both increasing heat input and increasing thermal conductivity of the shielding gas. The microstructure is highly affected by the cooling conditions that may enhance diffusion processes and eventually lead to precipitation of deleterious carbides. Higher heat input and prolonged cooling duration during surfacing lead to high dilution and a pronounced carbide network and thus, substantially reduced corrosion resistance in artificial seawater. The corrosion of the surfacings in the potentiodynamic polarization test is driven by selective corrosion of the phase boundary between carbides and chromium-depleted austenite. Passive behavior is observed for coatings with low dilution and higher cooling rates, which showed homogeneous chromium distribution and no interconnected carbide networks. In conclusion, the corrosion behavior of gray cast iron was improved by surfacing with duplex stainless steel.

During solidification, the cooling behaviour of materials depends on the heat flow through the mould and the alloy composition. Even though the alloy composition is same; the cooling rate can change the properties of the materials. In the present study, an attempt has been taken to predict the cooling behaviour of gray cast iron into a resin bonded sand mould at various thicknesses using JL FEM analyser software. Using K-type thermocouple, the temperature was measured after every 20 sec. Both, the computer simulated and experimentally investigated cooling curves show the similar nature or pattern of the curves. The microstructure also confirms that the cooling rate changes the structure of the cast iron from gray to white.

This study compares the tribological performance of HVOF and HVSFS coatings applied to gray cast iron and aluminum cylinder liners. Five different materials, including Fe alloy, FeCrMo, CrC-NiCr, NiCrBSi, and WC-Co, were sprayed using a conventional HVOF torch operated by a six-axis robot while the liners were manipulated by means of a rotary table. A similar setup was used to spray TiO 2 -TiC coatings, but the gun was modified for nano-sized particles in a suspension fed axially into the combustion chamber. Coating microstructures were examined using optical and SEM imaging and friction and wear properties were determined through oscillating friction wear tests. The results obtained are compared to state-of-the-art cylinder liners.