In the field of thermal spraying a lot of things have been and still are happening concerning education and training of personnel. The education and training of thermal sprayers according EWF-Guideline is required frequently in combination of the international standard DIN EN ISO 14918 “Approval Testing of Thermal Sprayers” - especially in the German-language countries. Meanwhile about 13 ETS courses were held at the German Welding Institute. Also interested in the education and training of thermal sprayers are countries like Poland and China. In France thermal spray personnel was educated and trained in a company internal course. Sweden and Norway run ETS courses in cooperation. The EWF education and training course of the ETSS European Thermal Spraying Specialist will be offered by the German Welding Institute in Munich - SLV München - for the nineth time in October 2005. Since about 1993 European Committees of EWF (European Federation of Welding, Joining and Cutting) and CEN (European Committee or Standardization) worked out education and training guidelines and qualification standards of thermal spray supervising personnel and sprayers and established them step by step. The meanwhile created and internationally accepted EWF-education and training guidelines of supervising personnel and thermal spray workers involve also the new ISO standards of the Thermal Spraying Co-ordinator and the Approval Testing of Thermal Sprayers. The ISO personnel qualification and quality management standards result together with the EWF education and training guidelines in a sound QM-system, which meets the increased demands of trade and industry of high quality sprayed coating. Experiences in applying these guidelines and standards are introduced.

A review of selected national and international thermal spraying guides and specifications for the preservation of steel and reinforced concrete using thermal spray coating of aluminum, zinc and their alloys is presented. The work program and current status of the US national organizations contributing to and developing test methods and process standards are summarized along with those of ISOATC 107/SC 5. The Secretariat of the ISO/TC 107/SC 5, Thermal Spraying was transferred from AFNOR, France, to ANSI, US, in June 1995. ANSI, in turn, designated AWS to be its delegate in thermal spray matters. The work program of the newly formed SSPC/NACE/AWS Tri-Society Committee on thermal spray coatings for the corrosion protection of steel is summarized.

Plasma spraying is under investigation as a method for in-situ repair of damaged beryllium and tungsten plasma facing surfaces for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the next generation magnetic fusion energy device, and is also being considered as a potential fabrication method for beryllium and tungsten plasma-facing components for the first wall of ITER. Investigators at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Beryllium Atomization and Thermal Spray Facility have concentrated on investigating the structure property relationship between the as-deposited microstructures of plasma sprayed beryllium coatings and the resulting thermal properties of the coatings. In this study, the effect of the initial substrate temperature on the resulting thermal diffusivity of the beryllium coatings and the thermal diffusivity at the coating/beryllium substrate interface (i.e. interface thermal resistance) was investigated. Results have shown that initial beryllium substrate temperatures greater than 600°C can improve the thermal diffusivity of the beryllium coatings and minimize any thermal resistance at the interface between the beryllium coating and beryllium substrate.

Coating of cylinder bores using plasma spraying is a growing application of thermal spraying in automotive industry. The Sulzer Metco RotaPlasma manipulator provides continuous rotation of the internal diameter plasma gun and enables a cost-efficient and reliable coating of the cylinder blocks. The development towards more advanced quality control systems and closed-loop spray control systems requires an on-line measurement of the most important particle and spray parameters such as particle temperature, velocity and flux. However, the small dimensions of the plasma plume of an internal diameter spray gun together with the rotation of the gun makes the measurement difficult, if not impossible, for many traditional diagnostics equipment. In this work, SprayWatch, an imaging CCD camera based diagnostics system from Oseir Ltd. was used for measuring particle and spray parameters during the rotation of an internal diameter plasma spray gun. The results show that the SprayWatch camera system is a promising tool for both development and production monitoring of cylinder bore coating process, as well as for realising a closed-loop spray control system.

This paper presents a development program carried out at the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (C.E.A.), whose objective was to successfully bond a dense coating of stainless steel on the internal surface of an aluminum cylinder with a diameter of 300 mm. To achieve these results, a specific nozzle was designed, with calculations and measurements of the particles velocity using DPV 2000. The influence of key parameters on the coating density was investigated. A prototype was successfully produced by optimizing process parameters.

Miniaturization and performance improvements of electronic devices in recent decades have significantly increased heat dissipation rates. To overcome this, researchers have developed heat sinks with miniature fluid channels to maintain small device footprints with increased heat transfer performance. These channels are often fabricated using either subtractive fabrication methods, such as etching or micro-milling, or additive methods such as direct metal laser sintering (DMLS). These methods are limited by their long processing times, low geometric accuracy, or high cost. To overcome these limitations, a novel additive manufacturing method is developed using twin wire-arc spray. Wire-arc spray was used to build complex aluminum structures with length scales varying from 0.5 mm to 74 mm. Surface structures were built on a metal plate by spraying aluminum through a 3D printed polymer mask. Internal flow passages were made by filling surface channels with a water-soluble polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) paste that was allowed to harden, spraying metal over it, and then dissolving the PVA. The influence of wire-arc spray process parameters, such as standoff distance and scanning speed, on coating solid PVA with aluminum, were also investigated.

The internal plasma spraying for the deposition of thermal barrier coating already was introduced about 20 years ago. During the last 8 years a new generation of internal plasma torch was developed and introduced in the industry. The new generation is characterized by an improved resistance against the thermal radiation and a significantly improvement of the time life of the guns. The performances of the plasma torches regarding powder feed rate and deposition efficiency also were increased to allow the using in mass production in the automotive industry. The improvement of the time life of cathode and anode was realized by using CFD program to optimize the water cooling of the plasma torch. By the production line for cylinder bore the time life of cathode and anode was increased from 50 to more than 100 hours by the modification of the cooling geometry. Several application of internal spraying for mass production in the automotive, aerospace and the electrical industry will be discussed in details. Especially the internal spraying of the cylinder bore will be shown as typical application of high volume. The advantages of the plasma spraying in comparison with alternative technology will be demonstrated. The further development and future potential applications will be discussed at the end as outlook.

Since about the year 2000, cast alumin