The ASM Thermal Spray Society Recommended Practices Committee, through its Subcommittee on Safety, is responsible for the development and dissemination of practical recommendations for thermal spraying work. This paper discusses the guidance set forth in the “Recommended Practice for the Handling and Usage of Gases in Thermal Spraying,” which deals with the installation, operation, and maintenance of gas equipment used in spraying processes. It summarizes the hazards associated with compressed gases and high-pressure cylinders and presents precautionary measures to reduce the risks. Paper includes a German-language abstract.

Thermal spray is a melt-spray process in which material is melted and accelerated to high velocities, impinges upon a substrate, and rapidly solidifies to form a coating. Modeling the deposition dynamics of droplets is a key step towards understanding the evolution of a coating microstructure, since a coating is built up from the successive accumulation of many deformed, solidified droplets. This paper discusses some special effects testing of a particle model being developed by the authors to simulate the mechanics and thermodynamics associated with the simultaneous flattening and solidification of a fully liquid or partially solidified droplet. Rigorous validation of the numerical algorithm must necessarily be performed via this separate effects testing.