Cavitation erosion is one of the serious problems that affect lifetime and performance on hydraulic machineries and its components. Surface modification techniques is required to apply to hydraulic components, such as water turbine and radial flow pump, in general. Here, the techniques, which can easily be applied to large area, is must be required for actual applications in the fields. Thus, thermal sprayed WC cermet coatings with high abrasion resistance under wet conditions are one of the promising solutions as the protective coatings against cavitation erosion. In this study, WC/Cr 3 C 2 /Ni and WC/Co/Cr coatings prepared using a high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) spraying have been evaluated by a magneto-striction vibratory apparatus to investigate the cavitation erosion resistance. The microstructures of the sprayed coatings after the cavitation erosion test have been analyzed by SEM to clarify the erosion mechanism. It has been found that the cavitation erosion resistance of the WC cermet coatings is significantly affected by primary particle size of WC, powder compositions and spray conditions. In the WC/10wt%Co/4wt%Cr, the coating with WC average particle size of 6.3 µm sprayed by optimized spray conditions achieved the highest cavitation erosion resistance than the other WC coatings as well as base materials of stainless steel used in the actual components.

High purity oxide ceramic powders of alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) and yttria (Y 2 O 3 ) for plasma spraying have been developed to apply to semiconductor and flat-panel-display (FPD) production equipments. The ceramic coatings onto inside chamber wall of the equipments are required to have highly erosion resistance against CF containing plasma, widely used in dry etching process for micro-fabrications of the devices. Yttria is increasingly used in this application due to the high resistance compared to alumina. It is found that the yttria coating formed from agglomerated-and- sintered powder consisting of large primary particle has smoother eroded surface. Considering that particle deposition onto the devices, this coating will be effective to decrease generation of large sized particle, which is easily deposit onto the devices. Electric insulating properties of the coatings are also investigated to apply to electrostatic chuck. Electric breakdown voltage of yttria coatings is almost comparable to that of alumina coatings. However, yttria is difficult to apply due to its lower mechanical strength. Using smaller powder as feedstock is effective to improve the electric properties and influence of coating purity is lower than the powder size.

High velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) sprayed cermet coatings are required in various industrial fields due to their excellent properties, such as combination of wear resistance, corrosion resistance, high hardness, high bonding strength and stability under high temperature. In order to utilize them in the fields, optimization of composition and structure of the coatings are essentially important meaning that both spray powders and spray conditions are key process parameters. In this paper, developed spray powders of cermet materials are introduced for the specific applications, where 1. cavitation erosion, 2. mechanical impact, 3. corrosion by molten alloy and 4. general abrasive wear are major factors that damage the coatings. In order to solve these factors, HVOF coatings of 1. WC/Co/Cr with large WC particle, 2. WC/Cr 3 C 2 /Ni with addition of metal or alloy, 3. MoB/CoCr composed of double boride and 4. WC particle size in WC based cermet, are proposed and these merits are described.

Wear properties of WC/Co cermet coatings have been investigated prepared by cold spraying. Influence of cobalt contents (12~25wt.%), WC particle size (0.2 and 1.8 µm) and agglomerated-and-sintered powder size (-20+0 and - 45+15 µm) on abrasive wear resistance, micro hardness and coating structure is studied, in detail. It has been found that both smaller WC particle and decrease of cobalt content are effective to produce dense, hard and highly wear resistant coating. Smaller powder size is also favorable to make a coating with high mechanical properties. As a result, the cold sprayed coating from WC(0.2 µm)/12wt.%Co with powder size of -20+0 µm has best mechanical properties within this study. This coating has high uniformity and high density with little pores compared to conventional HVOF sprayed coatings. Abrasive wear resistance of the cold sprayed coating, investigated using Suga-abrasion tester, has been almost comparable to HVOF sprayed coating prepared from same feedstock. Strong correlation is also seen between Vickers hardness and abrasive wear resistance. Microstructural analysis suggests that further improvement of coating uniformity by decrease of small pores with the size of sub micron and homogeneous dispersion of WC grains in the cobalt matrix is required to improve the mechanical properties.

MoB/CoCr with excellent durability against molten metal has been developed to be applied to aluminum die casting parts in automobile and to hot continuous dipping rolls in Zn and Al- Zn plating lines for steel industries. Our previous study has revealed that the MoB/CoCr coating prepared by high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) spraying has much higher resistance against attack of the molten Al-45wt%Zn alloys compared to conventional WC/12wt%Co coating from evaluation by laboratory scaled molten metal immersion test. However, performance with no damage is only limited when applying onto the substrate with smaller thermal expansion similar to the MoB/CoCr coatings. This paper describes the solution to prepare the MoB/CoCr coating without damage onto austenitic stainless steel of AISI316L with larger thermal expansion, whose material is commonly utilized for the hot continuous dipping rolls. It has been found that use of undercoat is effective to reduce the negative influence of large difference in thermal expansion between the MoB/CoCr coating and substrate of AISI316L. Optimized thickness of topcoat and undercoat and its combination showed intrinsic performance of low reactive MoB/CoCr without any mechanical damage such as crack and/or peeling.

Erosion properties of high purity alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) and yttria (Y 2 O 3 ) coatings prepared by plasma spraying have been investigated against process plasma in semiconductor and liquid-crystal-display (LCD) production equipments for dry etching. Studies on plasma power dependency have revealed that yttria coatings have showed higher anti-plasma erosion resistance than alumina coating as well as sintered alumina bulk at every condition. Although yttria coatings are inferior to sintered yttria bulk, the difference of the resistance becomes smaller with increasing plasma power. This result positively promotes the application of the yttria spray coating because of increasing plasma power in actual process. Erosion properties of the coatings against Ar/CF 4 /O 2 plasma, whose composition is increasingly being used in commercial process, are also investigated where physical etching effect becomes stronger than the typical CF 4 /O 2 case. It has been found that order of durability (yttria bulk > yttria coatings > alumina bulk > alumina coating) is independent of the gas species used in this study. The mechanism of the plasma erosion is discussed through micro-structural analysis of the eroded surfaces.

MoB/CoCr, a novel thermal spray material, with high durability in molten Al and/or Al-Zn alloys has been developed to utilize for die casting parts of Al alloy, and for hot continuous dipping roll in Zn and Al-Zn plating lines. The durability of the MoB/CoCr coatings prepared by high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) spraying has been investigated using a molten metal immersion tester. The immersion tests revealed that the MoB/CoCr coating has much higher durability without dissolution in the Al alloys than conventional spray coatings, such as WC/12%Co and WC/10%Co/4%Cr, as well as various other surface modification methods. The MoB/CoCr coating also has showed higher durability in the molten Al-Zn alloy when the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the substrate is similar to that of the MoB/CoCr. The lifetime of the coating on stainless 316L substrate, widely used as the hot continuous dipping roll, was insufficient because of the generation of cracks due to a large difference in the CTE between the MoB/CoCr coating and substrate. Basic anneal examinations have revealed that optimization of coating structure by changing undercoat material and its thickness is effective to improve the lifetime.