A new challenge in the transport systems concerns with improving efficiency. Thermal swing coatings are interesting candidates for internal combustion engines due to their potential to reduce cooling requirements and increase efficiency. K 2 Ti 6 O 13 (KTO) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were prepared by atmospheric plasma spraying through powder structure design and optimization of deposition conditions. The thermophysical properties of plasma-sprayed KTO deposits and their effect on the thermal swing have been investigated. Their thermal conductivities were tested by a laser flash method and the thermal performance of the coatings was further examined by thermal swing test. The phases, nominal chemical compositions and microstructure of KTO deposits were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS). The results indicated that the chemical composition change occurs to the coatings resulting in a deviation from nominal stoichiometry due to chemical reactions between the plasma gas and particles. The thermal conductivity of the coating is very sensitive to the coating compositions, and the coating prepared using porous powder under pure argon presents a single K 2 Ti 6 O 13 phase and high porosity, and the lowest thermal conductivity of 0.85 W/m·K.

The application of thermally sprayed coatings on CFRPs has gained great interest to enhance thermal and tribological properties and several processes have been optimized. However, for the coating of internal surfaces of tubes there is no sufficient technical solution. This paper introduces a novel and unique process technique for coating the internal surfaces of CFRP tubes using the transplantation of thermally sprayed coatings. A negative shape tube with defined surface and material properties was used as a mandrel and coated using atmospheric plasma spraying (APS). The CFRP was then produced using filament winding onto the coating, and after curing, the specimen was separated from the mandrel. With this process innovation, CFRP tubes with internal ceramic or metallic coatings can be produced without any thermal degradation of the polymeric matrix or damage to the carbon fibers. Compared to conventional coating methods, this novel process technique has several advantages. It allows for the production of internal coatings with low roughness of R z = 10 μm as sprayed without post-processing. The specimens also have a significantly lower tendency to corrode compared to conventional coated CFRPs. A high adhesion strength of the coatings of 15.9 MPa was achieved and the hardness of the internal ceramic coating is 918 HV0.1

In this study, Al 2 O 3 -based coatings with varying TiO 2 contents (0, 3, 13, and 40%) were fabricated using atmospheric plasma spraying technique. To compare the superiority of the samples, their thermal properties (thermal conductivity and thermal shock resistance) were characterized. As observed, Al 2 O 3 - 40%TiO 2 (A-40T) coating exhibited relatively superior thermal insulation and thermal shock resistance at 600°C. According to the microstructure and phase analysis, this finding can be attributed to the special phase, Al 2 TiO 5 , and the pre-existing microcracks inside the coating. Thus, A-40T manifested excellent characteristics for thermal insulation application compared with pure Al 2 O 3 and low-TiO 2 content coatings.

An efficient temperature control on tool surfaces is essential in processes like injection moulding or die casting. A thermally sprayed heating coating could combine dynamic heating properties with a small assembly space as it is sprayed directly onto the cavity surface. With their intrinsically high electrical resistivity and low thermal expansion as compared with traditional alloys, High Entropy Alloys (HEA) show promising properties for the use as heating elements. Thus, the well-studied HEA Al 0.5 CoCrFeNi was used as a starting material for additional alloying with Zr and Si to force further lattice distortion in the solid solution. HEAs of differing compositions were melted and characterized. In the process, the potential of HEAs was assessed by characterizing their phase composition, thermal stability, and electrical resistivity. The characterized HEAs show a solid solution mainly consisting of fcc and bcc structure. Moreover, the composition Al 0.5 CoCrFeNiZr 0.2 Si 0.2 was determined as stable after heat treatment at 600 °C for 324 h. In addition, the electrical resistivity was raised by over 20 % relative to the starting material. As a result, a hitherto unknown HEA composition was detected to possess superior properties to traditional alloys for the application as heating coating.

This work provides a new in-situ measurement method for the analysis of the spray-spot geometry and the thermal properties of the coating. The new approach is based on infrared detection of the thermal radiation from the coating surface combined with a subsequent automated spray-spot characterization. With this method it is possible to describe the geometry, the axis-position of the torch, the powder injection properties, and the temperature distribution in of the spray-spot. Especially for the automated production in high quantity the spray-spot analysis is a useful assistance for the operator because the detector reacts very sensitive on small changes of the process conditions. With regard on important fields of application (e.g., gas turbine production) the sensor is suitable to detect drifting spray system parameters. Also, the progression of wear at the nozzle, injector and electrode can easily be estimated. In recent research the in-situ spray spot analysis is being developed further for the characterization of multipair electrode plasma generators.

Environmental degradation of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) by molten deposits such as calcium magnesium alumino-silicates (CMAS) is one of the most vital factors resulting in the failure of thermal barrier coatings, while turbine engine inlet temperatures are kept increasing for higher fuel efficiency. A new phase composite ceramic had been developed and evaluated for the topcoat of a durable thermal barrier coating (TBC) system with low thermal conductivity property and improved erosion resistance. The present work is to continue the effort to exploring the behavior of CMAS resistance of the phase composite TBC at high temperatures. The effects of CMAS attack and thermal exposure on the TBC degradation were investigated in experimental runs. In addition, a YAG-modified layer over the top of the TBC was applied with the attempt to improve CMAS resistance of the TBC system. The evaluation of CMAS resistance was focused on the most important characteristics of coating microstructure, CMAS penetration, and failure mode and test condition factors. The mechanisms for the CMAS infiltration and the TBC damages were discussed based on the analyses of the CMAS corroded samples in details.

The feasibility of processing various polymers by cold spray has been exemplified by depositions with low porosity and properties comparable to the bulk material. However, cold sprayed polymers are generally deposited with low deposition efficiency compared to more extensively studied metal sprays. Low efficiencies in polymer sprays are attributed to characteristic differences in material properties between metals and polymers. Notably, the thermophysical properties of polymers limit heat transfer and promote intra-particle thermal gradients that develop during cold spray processing. These properties (e.g., thermal conductivity, heat capacity, density) and low deposition efficiencies demand alterations to the cold spray process equipment outside typical metal powder spray conditions. Herein, a modified powder feed tube is used to pre-heat powder to temperatures (~84 °C) below the powder melting point, or cool it (~-55 °C) below room temperature before contacting the high velocity carrier gas in the nozzle of a CSM 108 cold spray system. Numerical simulation demonstrated that pre-heating/cooling the powder feedstock is a viable means of adjusting particle temperature upon impact with the substrate; however, this technique has generally not been deliberately utilized in the cold spray of polymers. In the present work, no significant increase in deposition efficiency (~65% for all sprays) was found by increasing the pre-heat temperature. However, pre-heated particles had a mechanical strength 28% higher than particles injected at room temperature and -55 °C. Despite this, scanning electron microscope images indicated no notable differences between the deposit microstructures. Future works are planned to study the effect of pre-heat at higher particle impact velocities and degrees of pre-heat to improve powder consolidation.

Despite their light weight, 2.3 times lighter than Al, polymers are limited to application with low thermal, wear, and abrasion demands. The enhancement of the functional surfaces of the polymers using thermal spraying techniques is a challenging task due to the thermal degradation of polymers, the low wettability, and the disparate atomic properties. The twin-wire arc spraying (TWAS) process comprises two contradictory features. Almost all spraying particles are in a molten state on the one hand, and on the other hand, the spray plume has the lowest heat output among the different thermal spraying techniques. Therefore, it is a promising spraying technique for the required surface improvement. The surface of the 3D-printed parts was metalized using two successive layers. The first layer is a TWAS coating made of low-melting ZnAl 4 to avoid thermal degradation and provide a bond coat. The topcoat is also applied using a TWAS process and was made out of Ni-WC-Co as cored wires. The top hard coating has improved the wear resistance of the polymers by 14.6 times. The erosion of the coated and uncoated specimens was determined using a low-pressure cold gas spray gun. Ni-WC-Co coating led to more than five times higher erosion resistance.

During the thermal cycling process in MCrAlY-YSZ thermal barrier coating system, stresses are produced at bondcoat (BC)-topcoat (TC) interface due to the mismatch of the thermal expansion coefficients of the two coating layers. The stresses at the interface are not a single value and can be affected by the coatings’ microstructure. In this paper, finite element (FE) modeling method was used to study the behavior of the stress distribution at the coatings’ interface. The influence of the pore structure in the ceramic TC and the micro bulge structure at the metal BC surface was investigated. The results showed that both structures can change the stress distribution. The pores played a “stone-in-river” role, which trapped higher stress around them and simultaneously reduced the size of the macro stress zones in TC. The micro bulges at the TC/BC interface also trapped high stresses which could cause more interaction between TC cracks and BC roughness.

This paper presents the results of two metals coatings, molybdenum and tantalum, prepared by Controlled Atmosphere Plasma Spray (CAPS) onto Al 6061 substrates that were thermal cycled to calculate the effective coating modulus. Traditional uniaxial tensile testing samples were prepared from thicker duplicate coatings for comparison, as well as to measure thermal expansion properties and oxygen and nitrogen content. The molybdenum samples cut from thicker coatings were un-able to be tensile tested due to their fragility. Thermal cycle testing of molybdenum on an Al 6061 substrate was found to have a modulus approximately 18 to 19% of literature values for bulk molybdenum using the bi-layer beam thermal cycling method. Additionally, non-linear modulus behaviour was observed in the molybdenum sample when enough thermal strain was induced to shift the coating from a compressive to tensile stress state. The tantalum coating was found to have a modulus approximately 42 to 46% of literature values for bulk tantalum using the bi-layer thermal cycling method. Traditional tensile testing measured a modulus approximately 44 to 46% of bulk, which shows good agreement between the two methods and supports that the bi-layer thermal cycling method is valid for plasma sprayed refractory metal coatings.

As a critical technology, thermal barrier coatings (TBC) have been used in both aero engines and industrial gas turbines for a few decades, however, the most commonly used MCrAlY bond coats which control air plasma sprayed (APS) TBC lifetime are still deposited by the powders developed in 1980s. This motivates a reconsideration of development of MCrAlY at a fundamental level to understand why the huge efforts in the past three decades has so little impact on industrial application of MCrAlY alloys. Detailed examination of crack trajectories of thermally cycled samples and statistic image analyses of fracture surface of APS TBCs confirmed that APS TBCs predominately fails in top coat. Cracks initiate and propagate along splat boundaries next to interface area. TBC lifetime can be increased by either increasing top coat fracture strength (strain tolerance) or reducing the tensile stress in top coat or both. By focusing on the reduction of tensile stress in top coats, three new bond coat alloys have been designed and developed, and the significant progress in TBC lifetime have been achieved by using new alloys. Extremely high thermal cycle lifetime is attributed to the unique properties of new alloys, such as remarkably lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and weight fraction of β phase, absence of mixed / spinel oxides, and TGO self repair ability, which cannot be achieved by the existed MCrAlY alloys.

Microstructure and physicochemical properties of a thermally sprayed coating depend on the dynamics of the particles interacting with the spray jet. This is especially the case for electrical properties. In this study, different spraying processes were used to spray p-type and n-type half-Heusler powders. Thermoelectric powders, Hf20Zr75Ti05CoSb80Sn20 (p-type) and Hf60Zr40NiSn98Sb02 (n-type), were selected due to their interesting electrical properties. The spray processes were evaluated based on coating composition and mechanical property measurements. The only coatings of practical interest were those that were plasma sprayed and they were examined in detail to assess the effect of process parameters on coating properties.

In this study, different sets of plasma-sprayed YSZ thermal barrier coatings were deposited via Ar/H 2 and N 2 /H 2 plasmas and compared based on deposition efficiency (DE), thermal conductivity (TC), and furnace cycle testing (FCT). The top-performing coatings exhibited equivalent FCT lifetimes with TC values in the range of 1.15-1.25 W/mK at 1200 °C, but the deposition efficiency of those produced with N 2 /H 2 plasma was twice as high, resulting in a 55% reduction in production costs.

Yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) has desirable properties for a thermal barrier coating (TBC), although there are two production challenges. One, YAG has a relatively low thermal expansion coefficient which leads to large thermal mismatch stresses, and two, amorphous phases are produced by atmospheric plasma spraying. Solution precursor plasma spraying (SPPS) has to potential to solve both problems. First off, it produces no amorphous phases. Secondly, it can produce a cracked microstructure that mitigates the CTE mismatch issue. To judge the adequacy of the properties of SPPS YAG, a summary of the properties of common TBCs is presented. It is shown that the properties of SPPS YAG fall within desirable or usable ranges. Current efforts described in this paper focus on improving the efficiency and rate of deposition.

A wide range of properties can be achieved in intermetallic coatings applied by gas detonation spraying (GDS). The properties of Fe-40at%Al GDS layers, however, may change when exposed to temperatures exceeding a threshold level. To characterize such changes, Fe-40at%Al GDS coatings were subjected to systematic dilatometric studies in which temperatures were cycled from room temperature to 1180 °C. The investigation revealed both irreversible and reversible phase transitions as described in the paper. Dilatometry measurements obtained from sintered samples made from the same powder are presented for comparison.

Cation-deficient perovskite-type oxides have received considerable attention as new thermal barrier coating materials because of their extremely low thermal conductivities. In this study, sintered samples produced from RTa 3 O 9 (R: Y, La or Yb) powders are examined and the mechanisms behind their low thermal conductivity are investigated. Thermal conductivity was found to vary primarily with the ionic radius of the R element. As ionic radius decreases, nanodomains form via tilting of the TaO 6 octahedra. Phonon scattering at the domain boundaries is thus likely responsible for the low thermal conductivity of cation-deficient perovskite oxides.

Tungsten and its alloys are promising candidates for protecting plasma-facing components in fusion reactors such as tokamaks. However, processing is complicated by tungsten’s brittleness, CTE mismatch with copper and steel, susceptibility to grain growth and oxidation above 500 °C, and poor weldability. Given these factors, attention is shifting from conventional methods to powder and additive techniques. In this work, two technologies are employed for consolidation of W and WCr layers: cold kinetic spraying and inductively-coupled plasma spraying. Both methods overcome production challenges by depositing plasma-facing layers directly on structural parts, without the need for joining and the risk of oxidation. The properties of W and WCr coatings obtained by both methods are assessed by means of SEM, XRD, and mechanical and thermal analysis.

In this study, icephobic polymer coatings were produced by flame spraying using different process parameters. Process optimization for low-density polyethylene (LDPE) coatings was achieved through design of experiments. The most icephobic coating was produced at a traverse speed of 900 mm/sec and a spraying distance of 250 mm. Although surface roughness affected ice adhesion, thermal effects proved to be the main factor influencing the performance of the coating. The higher the processing temperature, the smoother the surface and the greater the polymer degradation. It is also shown that coating degradation can be caused during post heating steps with similar consequences in the ice-shedding performance of the LDPE coatings.

A low thermal conductivity in feedstock material and high plasma temperatures generally lead to inhomogeneous heating of particles in plasma spraying. Existing modeling methods can determine heat transfer within idealized spherical particles with homogenous morphology, but in many cases, particles have an agglomerated morphology, consisting of multiple smaller particles that are packed together. The reduced contact area between the individual smaller particles results in a drastic reduction of the effective thermal conductivity of the agglomerate. On the other hand, it enhances heat transfer from the plasma gas due to the increased particle surface area and penetration of the hot plasma into the agglomerate. Moreover, the momentum transfer from the plasma to the agglomerate differs from that of a homogenous spherical particle, which can significantly affect heating dynamics. This paper presents a novel particle modeling approach that accounts for all such phenomena. Differences in kinematics and heating dynamics of the agglomerates are analyzed with regard to their packing densities.

This study investigates the effect of thermal cycling on cold-spray chromium coatings deposited on steel substrates. First, equilibrium stress states are determined for different coating thicknesses. Next, the potential for crack initiation and growth is simulated based on periodic heating and cooling cycles. The corresponding crack driving forces are characterized using interface stresses and energy release rate as a function of the thermal cycles. The effects of coating thickness, embedded microcracks, and initial residual stress on the driving forces are investigated systematically to demonstrate the risk of coating fracture and delamination.