This study investigates the cavitation erosion (CE) behavior and fracture morphology of tungsten carbide thermal spray coatings. WC-CoCr and WC-CrC-Ni powders of various sizes were deposited on stainless steel substrates by HVOF spraying using different combustion pressures. Coating samples and Cr steel reference specimens were subjected to vibratory cavitation erosion tests, volume loss was measured, and erosion damages were examined by SEM to assess fracture morphology. The results indicate that CE resistance can be improved by reducing porosity and increasing interparticle bonding strength.

ASTM C633 has been an industry standard for determining thermal spray coating adhesion and cohesion strengths for nearly 40 years. The test, however, has several drawbacks that can greatly affect the results. The epoxies used cannot withstand stresses greater than 15,000psi, producing data that may suggest coatings cannot function beyond the epoxy threshold under uniaxial tensile loading, resulting in data that can only be used for general quality control or acceptance testing. Previously published data shows coatings functioning beyond C633 limits, yet there is no standardized test to show true functional stress limitations. A four-point bend test method with an instrumented strain-gage has been used to show coating adhesion well beyond the yield point of the steel substrates and beyond the C633 limits for three materials and thermal spray processes: electric arc sprayed aluminum bronze, plasma sprayed alumina, and HVOF WC/Co/Cr. A strain-gage is applied to a prepared coating surface on a bend bar and loaded under tension or compression. The MTS universal load frame force data is used to calculate the stress at the coating/substrate interface by beam theory equations, allowing for stress and strain vs displacement curves to be generated and directly compared against C633 data for coating adhesion strengths. The resulting data can indicate microscopic coating behavior (cracking, de-bonding) as a result of the test sensitivity and can ultimately be used as design data for the practicing engineer.

Presently one of the most important tendencies is the use of tungsten (W) monoblock material for the first wall and other plasma facing components (PFCs) in tokamak. The use of low Z materials such as B 4 C for protection of PFCs is a conventional method to decrease heavy impurity influx into tokamak plasma. This study involves the fabrication and characterization of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) thermal sprayed B 4 C coating on tungsten monoblock. Thickness of the coating was about 120μm. Surface morphology of the coating is presented with scanning electron microscope and metallographic microscope analyses. X-ray diffraction analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the main phase and chemical composition of the coatings were preserved when compared with that of the initial B 4 C powder. Adhesion test result revealed that the adhesion/cohesion strength of the coating was above 13.1 MPa. This work is innovative not only for the ICP thermal sprayed method for the B 4 C coating fabrication but for the plasma sprayed B 4 C on tungsten substrate.

In this study, 43 μm 316L stainless steel and 23 μm commercial purity Fe feedstocks were used. The following coatings were made by cold spray: single component 316L, Fe, and their binary composites with nominal compositions of 20 wt.% Fe (20Fe), 50 wt.% Fe (50Fe) and 80 wt.% Fe (80Fe). The coatings were characterized (microstructure, flattening ratio, composition) and the cold sprayability metrics (DE, porosity, coating cohesion strength) were analyzed. Results show that the single component 316L coating has a much better DE and coating cohesion strength, and a slightly lower porosity as compared with the Fe coating, whereas all the composite coatings have the similar cohesion strength. Moreover, the 20Fe coating features the highest porosity and the lowest DE; 50Fe coating features the lowest porosity; and the 80Fe coating features the highest DE. To characterize the feedstock mixture composition, in addition to the usual approach of weight or volume fraction, the ratio of the 316L and Fe particle numbers in a mixture (i.e. particle number fraction), was calculated. Using this metric, the effects of the feedstock mixing composition on the cold sprayability of bimodal size 316L/Fe powder mixtures can be better explained.

Measuring the cohesive strength of thermally sprayed coatings is relatively difficult matter, which can be accessed in many directions. This issue is nowadays solved by use of Scratch test method. This method is not completely sufficient for the cohesive strength testing because the coating is under load of combined stresses during the Scratch test. The reason to develop this method was need for exact measurement of tensile cohesion toughness of thermally sprayed coatings, which could provide results as close to a classic tensile test as possible. Another reason for development of this method was the impossibility of direct comparison with results obtained by other methods. Tested coatings were prepared using HP / HVOF (Stellite 6, NiCrBSi, CrC-NiCr and Hastelloy C-276). These coatings were selected as commonly used in commercial sector and on because of rising customer demand for ability to provide such coating characteristics. The tested coatings were evaluated in terms of cohesive strength (method based on tensile strength test). Final fractures were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy and EDS analysis. As expected higher cohesive strength showed metallic coatings with top results of coating Stellite 6. Carbide coatings showed approximately third of the cohesion strength in comparison with metal based coating.

In this paper, yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) coatings were prepared by plasma spraying of ready-to-spray suspensions provided by three different manufacturers. High-enthalpy hybrid water-argon plasma torch WSPH 500 was successfully used for deposition of coatings with porous and columnar microstructure consisting of tetragonal non-transformable phase. Sensitivity of the deposition process to variation of deposition conditions was also evaluated by the change of suspension injection point position. Slight differences in the microstructures of the deposited coatings (in particular character of porosity and mutual bonding of the microsplats) were reflected in slight but measurable differences in hardness and wear resistance of the coatings indicating changes in the coating cohesion. Tensile adhesion/cohesion strength of the coatings was found to be in the range of 9 to 15 MPa. High coating porosity desirable for low thermal conductivity combined with high suspension feed rate (from about 100 to 120 ml/min in this study) makes the WSP-H coatings promising for further development for example in thermal barrier coatings applications.

For well over a hundred years, hardness testing has provided engineers a quick measure of the mechanical properties of a material or coating. However, the technique has also been fraught with potential artifacts, many of which are related to a phenomenon known as the “indentation size effect”. Unlike bulk materials, experimental studies on the hardness measurements of cold spray coatings in different load regimes shows strong dependency on the indentation size in a manner different from the Nix–Gao model. In cold spray coating additional parameters such as porosity and cohesive strength between cold sprayed particles affect the hardness measurements. As a result the hardness loss was observed by increasing the indentation load. To interpret the experimental observation, a two dimensional model was developed taking into consideration the inter particle damage. Ductile damage initiation in combination with the linear damage evolution model has been used. The deviation of load-displacement curves in the material with inter particle defects in comparison to bulk material was studied to explain the mechanism involved in hardness loss.

Advanced materials are the crucial factors determining the successful application of future nuclear fusion energy. Plasma facing materials (PFMs) are one of the most important armor materials in nuclear fusion experiment devices for direct facing with the extremely high thermal load, thermal shock and strong irradiation of high energy particles. W coated CuCrZr substrate has been considered as one of the candidates to the armor materials due to its high melting point, chemical stability and good thermal conductivity. However it was a challenge to obtain high strength thick W coatings because of the major difference of CTE between the W and CuCrZr substrate. In this paper, graded W/Cu layers were deposited as the bond layer via Low Pressure Plasma Spraying (LPPS) on the CuCrZr substrate. Subsequently, thick LPPS W coatings over 1.5 mm were prepared as the top layer. The adhesive and cohesive strengths for thick W coatings on CuCrZr substrates were evaluated according to the standard of ASTM C633. The results showed that the oxide formation on the W coating surface rapidly deteriorated the coating microstructure and properties.

Adhesion/cohesion testing represents one of the most common methods for benchmarking and optimization of thermal spray coatings. However, due to the inhomogeneous coating microstructure, such testing may be quite troublesome. In this study, adhesion/cohesion strength of representative metallic and ceramic coatings deposited by Water Stabilized Plasma (WSP) spraying was evaluated by different methods, namely Tensile Adhesion Test (TAT), newly utilized pin test and Tubular Coating Tensile (TCT) test. Combination of various methods enabled the evaluation of the splat bonding quality in different loading modes. Limitations and benefits of each method for testing of WSP coatings are demonstrated. Dominating failure micromechanisms were determined by supplementary fractographic analysis.

This study reports on the effect of combined pulsed laser ablation and laser pre-heating surface pre-treatments to cold spraying Ti and Ti-6Al-4V on coatings’ microstructure, bond strength and cohesive strength. The Ti and Ti-6Al- 4V coatings were sprayed on pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V substrates, respectively. Coatings were characterized by SEM and porosity level was evaluated through image analysis. Bond strength was evaluated by standard ASTM C633 pull tests and by the laser shock (LASAT) technique. Cohesive strength was evaluated by the cross-section scratch test method. Results show that among the spray conditions used in this study, laser pre-treatment yielded high bond strength (such that all cases had higher cohesive strength than the epoxy glue). The LASAT technique provided a means to evaluate the influence of the laser ablation energy density and the laser pre-heating temperature. For both Ti and Ti-6Al-4V coatings, surface pre-heating increased the coating bond strength to the substrate. The laser ablation process would either increase or decrease the bond strength of the coating to the substrate depending on the laser energy density. The laser energy density needs to be adjusted as a function of the surface pre-heating temperature in order to optimize bond strength improvement. Coating cohesion did not improve with continuous laser pre-treatment in-between passes. However, the laser pre-heating helped reduce the coating porosity.

Bead blasting and thermal spray coatings are often applied on process kits used in vacuum deposition chambers to improve adhesion between kit surfaces and deposited films. This study shows that in order to maximize chamber service time and reduce processing defects, thermal expansion mismatches must be considered between chamber components, sprayed coatings, and vacuum deposited films. When a titanium sheet coated with arc sprayed aluminum was placed in a titanium nitride deposition chamber, significant particle spiking was observed. However, during the same period of chamber service time, particle performance was stable for titanium coated with arc sprayed molybdenum. It should be noted that the thermal expansion coefficients of Ti and Mo are much closer than those of Ti and Al. By further optimizing the cohesion strength of the arc-sprayed Mo coating, even lower particle counts have been achieved, corresponding to fewer processing defects and prolonged chamber kit lifetime.

In cold spraying, the high strain rate plastic deformation during particle impact leads to a local temperature rise at the particle/substrate interface. This gives rise to thermal softening and thus further strain and heat generation, finally resulting in adiabatic shear instabilities, which are necessary to supply sufficient heat for successful bonding of the particles. These adiabatic shear instabilities can only occur, if a critical impact velocity is exceeded. A further increase of the impact velocity beyond this critical velocity continuously increases the fraction of well-bonded interfaces up to 95%, thus improving mechanical performance of the coatings. However, at far too high impact velocities, the efficiency again decreases and then changes to erosion due to hydrodynamic penetration. This erosion velocity is approximately two to three times higher than the critical velocity. The optimum velocity range between critical and erosion velocity is defined as “window of deposition”. Both critical and erosion velocity depend on the spray material properties, but also on particle impact temperature and particle size. Furthermore, they are also influenced by the powder purity. This study demonstrates the previously mentioned effects by calculations and experimental investigations. The presented link between fluid dynamics and impact dynamics enables to predict optimum spray parameters as well as the process effectiveness and resulting coating properties for certain cold spray conditions. Following this strategy, it was possible to increase the ultimate cohesive strength of cold-sprayed copper coatings from 80 MPa to more than 400 MPa, using nitrogen as process gas. In the annealed state, the ductility of these coatings corresponds to annealed bulk material. The overall optimization strategy is applicable to a wide variety of other spray materials. These developments should boost several new cold spray applications.

It is well known that thermal spray condition affects the coating properties such as porosity, elastic modulus, coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), coating fracture strength and coating cohesive strength. Therefore, residual stress formed in the sprayed coating and coating stress generated during in-service is dramatically changed with the thermal spray condition. In this study, effect of several kinds of thermal spray conditions on these properties of the coating was examined experimentally. Typical thermal barrier coating system composed of a partially stabilized zirconia (its chemical composition is 8wt%Y 2 O 3 -ZrO 2 ) and CoNiCrAlY bond coating was selected herein. In-flight particle velocity and temperature, and the substrate temperature were changed as the thermal spraying process parameters varied. For the ceramic coating layer, the coating properties such as porosity, Vickers hardness, CTE, elastic modulus, bending fracture strength, fracture toughness of splat boundary and then coating residual stress were measured systematically.

The goal of this paper is to evaluate high temperature ageing properties of a new high temperature titanium blade compatible abradable material DurabradeTM 2614. Coatings were tested in as-sprayed condition and after ageing at 550°C and 655°C for up to 8,030 hours. Coating properties such as coating hardness, erosion resistance, and cohesive strength were evaluated at regular time intervals. Abradability was tested in as-sprayed condition and after ageing. The results show that coating hardness, GE erosion resistance, and cohesive strength of the new material change most in the first 200 hours and SMC90 erosion resistance, and oxidation weight gain change most in the first 1,000 hours and then they stabilize at values that guarantee good seal performance. The good performance of the new seal after 8,030 hours ageing has been demonstrated by abradability and erosion testing.

The characterization of the adhesive and cohesive strength of thermally sprayed coatings is often evaluated according to given standardized testing procedures. These tests require the preparation of normally large coupons which have to be fixed together using an appropriate adhesive. Additionally they need time for preparation (e.g. annealing/curing of the adhesive) and require test equipments normally not available at job shops for coating development. One of the largest limitations of these tests is the applicability only for non-porous coatings, and in some cases the limited strength of the adhesive. Within a European CRAFT research project on “standards, measurements and testing”, a new shear test method was developed to characterize the mode and value of failure of thermally sprayed layers in a more reliable and less limited manner. This new shear test does not need any adhesive and yields more intrinsic information on coating quality than conventional tensile tests.

Disk-shaped splats that can be obtained on a heated substrate reveal a better contact with the substrate surface, resulting in a better adhesion/cohesion of coatings. Some research results illustrate that when the substrate temperature exceeds the transition temperature, the ideal splat can be obtained. In the simultaneous preheating-spraying-cooling process, named HEATCOOL in which a preheating gun heats the specimen just before the spraying and a cooling jet cools it just after the spraying, the preheating temperature is of short duration. In order to study the preheating effect and determine the optimal velocity of the movement of the system for obtaining an appropriate preheating temperature, the function specification method, an optimisation method, was adopted combined with FEM (the finite element method). An oxy-acetylene flame was used as preheating thermal resource, the optimal velocities were estimated. Particle impact tests of Cu and YSZ (ZrO 2 - 8%Y 2 O 3 ) powders sprayed by plasma with a flame heating system were carried out with different moving velocities. The splats morphology collected on stainless steel and aluminium plates were observed to clarify and confirm the calculated results.

The properties of thermal sprayed coatings depend mainly on the thermal and kinetic energy of the spray particles. Increase of thermal energy of sprayed particles can be realized using exothermic reactions between components in sprayed particles. Self propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) is especially suitable to benefit from released energy in the spraying process. At present most commonly used spray material with exothermal reaction is Ni+Al. However, the highest amount of heat is produced in the reactions of aluminium and metal oxides. Of special interest are Cr 2 O 3 , NiO, CuO and V 2 O 5 because they obtain high reaction energies. Furthermore products of the reaction are of special, functional interest like NiAl as bonding agent or alumina as a wear resistant coating. To assure good contact between reacting substances (Al/Oxides) powders for plasma spraying were prepared by mechanical alloying. Calorimetric investigations of plasma sprayed coatings prove that during spraying Al reacts exothermically with oxides. Increase of oxide contents improves coating adhesion/ cohesion properties, hardness, and reduction of porosity. Results are discussed on the base of light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray structure analysis (XRD).