Cold-sprayed copper coatings tend to be brittle and their electrical conductivity is inferior to that of the bulk material. In order to solve these problems, conventionally, it has been attempted to recover the metallic structure by heat treatment. This study, however, focuses on the effects of phosphorus and tin with the aim of improving cold spray copper coatings by optimizing the impurity content of Cu powder. It is shown that, by adjusting the content of P and Sn, dense copper coatings can be obtained with high ductility and electrical conductivity equal to that of the bulk material.

Cold atmospheric plasma spraying is used to produce thin coatings of copper and tin between 20-80 μm thickness for use in diffusion soldering. This study presents an alternative process to apply composite solders directly onto power electronic bare dies. The formation of intermetallic phases may be promoted by the homogeneous distribution of the Cu and Sn particles as they are presented not in a layered structure but as a pseudo alloy within the coating. The Cu and Sn powder is mixed in situ using two powder conveyors, enabling adjustable mix ratios. The presented approach has been shown to produce a homogeneous particle distribution within the coating. Furthermore, preliminary experiments indicate the feasibility of the technology for applications in diffusion soldering.

Dilute aluminium alloys with additions of tin and indium when deposited by thermal spraying no longer behave as barrier coatings but demonstrate sacrificial corrosion properties when they exist on corrodible substrates. The degree to which the sacrificial attack occurs depends upon the spraying conditions and the tin or indium contents of the coating. The form in which the tin and/or indium exists in these coatings has not been specified but both elements are known to be sparingly soluble in aluminium. A series of experiments have been carried out using Al-12wt%Sn alloy powder as a feedstock for high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) spraying on to a steel substrate. The as-sprayed coatings were highly reactive in distilled water and dissolved in a few minutes. Heat-treatment of the coatings at 450°C for increasing amounts of time up to 20 hours reduced the reactivity to water but did not influence the corrosion rate in 0.1M NaCl solution. SEM/TEM observations on the coating provided evidence of the coarsening of tin particles from 15nm (as sprayed) to 0.5-2µm (as heat-treated). A second alloy with a copper addition i.e. Al-12wt%Sn-1wt%Cu was also sprayed to form coatings. The copper addition prevented reaction in water but did not influence the high corrosion rate of the as-sprayed coating in 0.1M NaCl. Heat treatment at 450°C reduced the corrosion rate and allowed passive films to form over limited ranges of electrode potential. The size and distribution of the tin phase was different in the copper containing coatings and this influenced the corrosion rate.

The aim of this work is to cold spray a metal coating with sound mechanical properties and good electrical and thermal conductivity on carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) substrates. Copper, aluminum, and tin were used as the coating materials and different gas pressure and preheating temperature combinations were employed during spraying. Erosion was found to be the key obstacle to develop continuous coatings, although embedded particles were observed in the residual epoxy.

In this work, metallic powders are applied to carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) substrates by low-pressure cold spraying. The coatings as well as the coating-substrate interfaces are characterized and the deposition mechanism is determined. It is shown that gas temperatures above 300°C are required for the continuous deposition of tin. These temperatures bring about partially melting, which facilitates adhesion. Accordingly, a “crack filling” mechanism is proposed to explain the deposition.

Carbon fiber (CF) composites are widely used in the aerospace industry due to their light weight and favorable mechanical properties. Nevertheless, applying protective coatings (e.g. erosion resistance) through thermal spraying presents specific challenges with defects such as distortion, oxidation, and poor coating adhesion. This study presents a new technique that combines electroless plating processes and thermal spray for depo-siting metals onto polymer-reinforced composites. Samples of low melting polyaryletherletone (LMPAEK) thermoplastic polymer reinforced with carbon fibers aligned in the normal direction (ZRT film) are plated (with copper, silver, or nickel) to provide an adhesion layer for the thermal spray processes. Subsequently, pure tin and titanium (i.e. Ti-6Al-4V) is deposited on the samples using High Velocity Air-Fuel (HVAF) and atmospheric plasma spray (APS) processes. Cross-sections of the resulting coatings are compared, and the materials are characterized for surface roughness, cracks and pores.

Pure metal coatings have successfully been cold sprayed on to carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) in previous studies at McGill University. As a means to improve coating conductivity for lightning-strike protection (LSP) purposes, coatings with mixed metal powders were sprayed. There is also the possibility of improving the deposition efficiency (DE) since single component tin coatings previously had a maximum DE of only 20%. The studied coatings were based on a mix of tin and aluminum powders, the latter being a metal commonly used in the aerospace industry for its lightweight properties. The different coatings were characterized and compared to results on pure tin coatings and on mixed Sn-Cu and Sn-Zn coatings. The DE was measured for different conditions and compared to those of previous studies. Mixing tin and aluminum powders is discussed and various mechanisms related to cold spraying mixed powders on CFRPs are explored.

This paper presents a novel approach to metallize plastic surfaces. The approach has the ability to control the electrical resistance of a metallized surface by selecting the appropriate high-melting temperature metal or alloy to be thermally sprayed. Early stages of this study concluded that twin-wire arc thermal spray of high melting temperature metals do not form continuous adhering coatings on plastic surfaces. In addition, kinetic spray deposition of metals such as copper and tin on plastic surfaces also did not provide continuous uniform metallic coatings except on a few selected plastics such as Ryton and Ultem. Rather, the kinetic sprayed particles become embedded and isolated within the plastic substrate surface when using appropriate spray conditions. By combining the kinetic and thermal spray processes we developed a novel approach to metallize plastics. The kinetic spray process is used to prepare the plastic surface with anchoring sites to later accept thermally sprayed high-melting temperature metals or alloys that provide the metallization.

Previous results at McGill University have shown that metallic coatings can be successfully cold sprayed onto polymeric substrates. This paper studies the cold sprayability of various metal powders on different polymeric substrates. Five different substrates were used, including carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polyether ether ketone (PEEK), polyethylenimine (PEI); mild steel was also used as a bench mark substrate. The CFRP used in this work has a thermosetting matrix, and the ABS, PEEK, and PEI are all thermoplastic polymers, with different glass transition temperatures as well as a number of distinct mechanical properties. Three metal powders, tin, copper and iron, were cold sprayed with both a low-pressure system and a high-pressure system at various conditions. In general, cold spray on the thermoplastic polymers rendered more positive results than the thermosetting polymers, due to the local thermal softening mechanism in the thermoplastics. Thick copper coatings were successfully deposited on PEEK and PEI.

Carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are more and more used in a wide range of industries, especially in the aerospace industry, but their low electrical conductivity has limited their application. During the past few years, metallization of CFRP has attracted increasing interest. To make the polymer composites electrically conductive, a conductive media must be either embedded into or coated onto the composites. Cold spray is one coating approach to achieve this. In this work, metallic powders were cold sprayed onto the CFRPs used in aircraft by using two different cold spray systems. The coatings as well as the coating/substrate interfaces were characterized and the deposition mechanism onto the CFRP substrate was determined.

Because of their characteristic spray geometry, pressure-gas-atomizers can be used to create thick coatings from molten metal. Production rates of pressure-gas-atomizers are substantially higher compared to conventional Thermal Spraying (100 – 200 kg/h based on molten tin). The shape of the spray cone can be designed by the geometry of the atomizer. The mean particle sizes and velocities (molten tin and tin-copper alloys) are controlled by the gas flow. Powder products and coatings of several millimeters on steel substrates were investigated. The average density of the layer was higher than 99%.

Tin was successfully cold sprayed onto carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) in previous studies at McGill University and a “crack-filling” mechanism was described as the mechanism that allowed deposition of the metal onto the composite counterpart. By adding other metal powders (aluminum, copper, zinc), it was possible to improve the deposition efficiency (DE) of the tin on the CFRP, as well as improve the electrical conductivity of the coating (notably with copper). While the effect of mixing powders with tin, and more notably the effect of the secondary component (SC) properties on the deposition improvement, were more thoroughly addressed in following studies, the question of the properties of these coatings remained. With the perspective of providing a metallic coating to a relatively poorly conductive composite substrate, this study aims to explore the electrical conductivity and the coating strength of cold sprayed tin with other SCs onto CFRPs. An extensive study on fractured surfaces highlighted the importance of the CFRP surface finish, and it was observed that the coating strengths improved with decreasing DE of pure tin.

In order to investigate the potentials to improve the deposition efficiency and to functionalize the polymer-based substrates, six configurations of microparticles Sn, Zn, Al, Sn+Al 2 O 3 , Al+Al 2 O 3 , Cu+Al 2 O 3 were cold sprayed on the substrate of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composites equipped with Cu-based sublayer or Al-based sublayer. The process conditions were kept unchanged. Microanalysis of sublayers and coatings was performed via a Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM), the deposition mechanisms of different powders couplings on CFRP substrate were then discussed. The results indicated that although the deposition efficiencies were negative, the systems of Zn, Al and Al+Al 2 O 3 perform better among all the configurations. It was found that the addition of alumina led to a lower deposition efficiency (DE), compared to the corresponding pure coatings. For single-component Sn, Zn and Al powders, they all showed an increasing trend of DE when changing the substrate from Cu-based systems to Al-based systems. The aim of this present work is to elaborate the intrinsic causes of erosion issues and to provide a reference value for picking spraying materials and preparing functionalized CFRP substrates. According to the SEM analysis, the insufficient deformation and escape behaviours of spherical copper powders explained for the difficulty of coating formation. It was noticeable that the surfaces of Al-based systems were more uniform than those of Cu-based ones, due to their desirable deformation abilities. Besides, the significant flattened particles, material mixing and melting phenomenon were observed in Al-involved systems, which would definitely contribute to the adhesive bonding between coating and substrate.

In previous studies at McGill University, tin was successfully cold sprayed onto carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs). A “crack-filling” mechanism was described as the deposition mechanism that allowed deposition of tin onto the CFRP. Improving the coating conductivity for lightning strike protection (LSP) purposes was achieved by adding other metal powders (aluminum, copper, zinc) to tin and cold spraying on the CFRP. At the same time, it was noticed that the addition of this secondary component (SC) provided an increase in deposition efficiency (DE), tamping was initially hypothesized to explain this improvement, thus prompting a study solely on the effect of SC hardness, which is reported elsewhere in this conference. However, it is recognised that other powder characteristics may also be influencing the DE. Thus, in this study, SCs with a wider variety of particle sizes, morphologies, densities and hardness values were mixed with tin and sprayed on CFRPs. The effect of SC properties on tin deposition is discussed and an optimal combination of SC properties for cold spraying of tin is suggested.

An optimized powder/suspension based atmospheric Plasma Spray (PS) process, using a Triplex Pro 210 TM torch, was implemented to elaborate Cu:TiO2 surface coatings on stainless steel. Nanometric Degussa P25 TM powder was prepared in a water-based suspension and co-sprayed with a Cu spheroidal powder. The bacterial reduction, evaluated with 1h-exposure to Escherichia Coli (E. Coli), was two times higher for the Cu:TiO2 coating compared to the bare stainless steel substrate. Since the coatings obtained by plasma spray are relatively porous, their antibacterial efficacy was compared to smooth Ag and Cu doped titanium nitride (TiN) films obtained by physical vapor deposition technique (PVD). For the same exposure time, the PVD smooth coatings showed a much lower antibacterial efficacy proving the topography effect on bacterial adhesion.

Dynamic Metallization (DYMET) process is developed to produce thick aluminum, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, lead, and tin coatings on any metal or ceramic substrates. It consists of a surface treatment process in which a mixture of solid metal and ceramic powders are accelerated by compressed air at pressures between 0.5 and 0.8 MPa.

It is well known that the inlet temperature of the spray gas influences the impact velocity of particles which, in turn, affects the mechanical and chemical properties of the final coating. From cold spray of high- and-low-melting-point feedstock such as Cu-Sn, it was found that those effects can vary with changes in particle shape and size. Copper powder feedstocks with different shapes, such as and dendritic (under 25 μm), were selected for analysis. For spherical (under 10 μm) powders of Cu 6 Sn 5 , an intermetallic compound (IMC) of Cu-Sn was formed in the as-coated state at and above gas inlet temperatures of 100 °C. for A gas inlet temperature of at least 300 °C was needed for the dendritic Cu powders. As temperatures increase, another IMC, Cu3Sn, was also formed. The onset temperature for the formation of the additional IMC was 450 °C for both shapes. Below 300 °C, both Cu and Sn were in solid state and thermodynamic driving forces were drawn from impact energy. Therefore, the spherical particles had more stored energy (strains) than the dendritic particles to initiate IMC formation.

The paper discusses a possibility of metallization of polymers using low pressure cold spray (Dymet 413). The bonding mechanism of the coating is discussed as well as the influence of the number of spraying passes on coating microstructure. Two commercial powder were used (i) tin; and (ii) aluminum to obtain coatings on PA6 polymer substrate. The substrate topography was modified with sandblasting. The adhesion strength, residual stresses, electrical resistivity, and microstructure were determined and characterized. Finally the comparison with other metallization methods was made and the application of cold spray for producing local conductive paths was assessed.

Hydrodynamic bearings have to fulfill different requirements, depending on the operating conditions. Yet, conventional hydrodynamic bearings could not be used in critical operating conditions such as permanent start / stop operations. This is the reason why rolling bearings are currently used for frequent starting operations and low circumferential velocities, as they occur in wind turbines. In order to operate hydrodynamic bearings in a fail-safe manner even under these increased requirements, new bearing materials are needed. Within this study two new bearing material concepts are developed and deposited by thermal spraying as coatings to interact in this tribological system. On the one hand, matrix materials containing friction-reducing solid lubricants and on the other hand, multilayer systems, which can be used in as-sprayed condition, are investigated. The aim of both concepts is to improve the operation properties under critical conditions. The coating concepts are therefore tested on a modified high-load ring-on-disc tribometer and are compared to a reference plain bearing material produced by conventional casting. In this way, it is shown whether these new concepts can meet the requirements of slow-moving and highly loaded hydrodynamic bearings.

In Cold Spraying, bonding occurs when the impact velocities of particles exceed a critical value. This critical velocity depends not only on the type of spray material, but also on the powder quality, particle size and the particle impact temperature. For metallic materials, the critical velocity is in the range of 200 – 1200 m/s. In analogy with explosive welding, bonding in Cold Spraying is associated with adiabatic shear instabilities caused by high strain rate deformation during impact. Numerical and experimental methods are developed to investigate the influence of impact conditions and related phenomena on the coating quality. For a deeper understanding of impact phenomena and coating formation, the particle impact was modelled by using the finite element software ABAQUS/Explicit. The numerical analyses indicate shear instabilities localized to the particle surfaces, and thus provide a basis for the calculation of critical velocity in terms of materials properties and process parameters. In addition, modelling is used to obtain information about the effect of process parameters on the bonding quality. For most materials, high-strain-rate data are not available. For a quantitative analysis, therefore, the respective materials behaviour was investigated through individual spraying experiments, which were complemented by additional relevant experiments such as impact tests or explosive powder compaction. In this way, impact dynamics, bonding mechanism and critical velocities could be linked. This type of analysis was proved as a powerful tool to reduce the number of experiments for the optimisation of coating quality in Cold Spraying and also to provide a broader overview of the process.