Thermal sprayed coatings are often used for high temperature applications and, per se, are subjected to transient temperature gradients during operation. The recurrent temperature changes generate stresses that damage the coating with time, and can even lead to its delamination. The most common methods to evaluate coating behavior under thermal cycling are furnace testing or burner rigs. Both approaches cannot match the conditions reached in service for several applications, in terms of the achievable heating rates for instance. As a consequence, a versatile and robust method to evaluate coating resistance to spalling under thermal cycles is still to be found. This paper presents the development of a thermal cycling rig where the heat input is provided by a laser. This rig allows easy testing of several samples jointly for heating rates as high as 55°C/s and for thousands of thermal cycles. Preliminary trials have allowed the development of different spalling criteria. Finally, it was found that SS430-based materials arc-sprayed on Al substrates exhibit higher delamination resistance (life) under rapid heating/cooling cycles than SS304 coatings on the same substrate. For such high heating rates, the thermal stresses generated in the coating would be more critical than the thermal mismatch at the interface coating/substrate.

This paper presents a life cycle assessment comparison of electroplating and various thermal spray processes for the formation of nickel coatings. The comparison was carried out using a peer-reviewed database of upstream materials and energy and commercial LCA software. Material and energy use and the corresponding emissions of each coating process were converted to impact scores by means of the Eco-Indicator-99 method.

Electroplated hard chromium (EHC) is widely coated onto parts to provide resistance to corrosion, wear and impact. The electroplating process, however, has significant health and environmental impacts. Air emissions during the electroplating process contain hexavalent chromium (Cr+6) - a known carcinogen, furthermore the process is energy intensive and generates hazardous waste. Because of health and environmental issues related to hard chromium plating, there have been several efforts to find alternatives. One of the more efficient technologies among the substitutes is High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying. This technology is commercially available today, with a major commercial opportunity in aerospace applications. In this paper, we therefore compare the life cycle environmental footprints of hard chromium and HVOF coatings for aircraft landing gear. Our results indicate that from an environmental perspective, HVOF spraying is generally preferable to EHC plating, with 5-10 times lower human health impacts and 30-50 times lower ecosystem impacts. However, in terms of resource consumption, the processes have similar impact profiles with EHC plating having a potential for lower impact on resources in areas with a significant share of renewable electricity.

When describing the cold spray process, one of the most widely used concepts is the critical velocity. Current models predicting critical velocities take the temperature of the sprayed particles explicitly into account but not the surface temperature (substrate or already deposited layers) on which the particle impact. This surface temperature is expected to play an important role since the deformation process leading to particle bonding and coating formation takes place both on the particle and the substrate side. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of the substrate temperature on the coating formation process. Experiments were performed using aluminum, zinc and tin powders as coating materials. These materials have a rather large difference in critical velocities that gives the possibility to cover a broad range of deposition velocity to critical velocity ratio using commercial low pressure cold spray system. The sample surface was heated and the temperature was varied from room temperature to a high fraction of the melting point of the coating material for all three materials. The change in temperature of the substrate during the deposition process was measured by means of a high speed IR camera. The coating formation was investigated as a function of (1) the measured surface temperature of the substrate during deposition, (2) the gun transverse speed and (3) the particle velocity. Both single particle impact samples and thick coatings were produced and characterized. Both the particle-substrate and interparticle bondings were evaluated by SEM and confocal microscopy

Coating build-up mechanisms and properties of cold sprayed aluminum-alumina cermets were investigated. Two spherical aluminum powders having average diameters of 36 and 81 microns were compared. Those powders were blended with alumina at several concentrations. Coatings were produced using a commercial low pressure cold spray system. Powders and coatings were characterized by electronic microscopy and microhardness measurements. In-flight particle velocities were monitored for all powders. The deposition efficiency was measured for all experimental conditions. Coating performance and properties were investigated by performing bond strength test, abrasion test and corrosion tests, namely, salt spray and alternated immersion in salt water tests. These coating properties were correlated to the alumina fraction either in the starting powder or in the coating.

The abrasion and erosion resistance of six different coatings were evaluated in relation to their microstructure. The coatings were produced from six different powders: four containing WC and two containing CrC. Microstructural analysis highlights the relationship between the starting powder morphology and chemistry and the spray conditions in the development of the final coating microstructure. The wear performance of the coatings was evaluated according to the ASTM G-65 standard for the abrasion resistance and a slurry containing 0.66% of 180 μm alumina particles flowing at 20 m/s for wet erosion resistance. The results show that for all tested coatings the abrasion wear resistance is mostly governed by the hardness distribution. For the chrome carbide, coatings having the lowest hardness are the lest abrasion resistant. For the WC containing coatings, carbide debonding and pullout is the main wear mechanisms. The most resistant material being the WC-6Co-8Cr. All the coatings performed better than the D2 tool steel reference sample. The erosion wear resistance is controlled by the local hardness, the matrix properties and the droplet debonding. The most wear-resistant materials are the WC-Co-Cr cermets. The least wear-resistant materials are the clad CrC-20(NiCr) and the WC-Ni cermets.

Recent studies have demonstrated that WC-12Co and WC- 10Co-4Cr coatings were the best performing HVOF coatings against erosion. This paper looks at the influences of the HVOF process parameters for WC-12Co and WC-10Co-4Cr materials on the erosion resistance of the coatings. The effect of powder morphology, matrix chemistry and HVOF process parameters with respect to both silica slurry erosion and alumina dry erosion has been studied. All coatings were produced using the HVOF JP-5000 system with kerosene-oxygen flame. The spraying parameters were analyzed in term of sprayed particle velocity and temperature as measured with the DFV2000 optical diagnostic system. Simultaneously with in-flight particle measurements, the substrate-coating temperature was monitored by infrared pyrometry during coating deposition. The resulting coating microstructure was evaluated in terms of microhardness, porosity type and extent of wear damage after dry and slurry erosion. The material volume loss under various erosion conditions was related to the coating properties and microstructure. According to the experimental results, the following conclusions are drawn: 1) the kerosene flow rate affects the inflight particle state (velocity and temperature) and the coating porosity. 2) Cobalt-chrome matrix cermet performs better in slurry erosion while denser and harder cobalt matrix cermet performs better in dry erosion. 3) The use of kerosene-rich flame with lower oxygen stoichiometry reduces the carbide degradation and optimizes the wear performance of WC-12Co coatings in both dry and slurry erosion.

Four high velocity thermal spray guns were evaluated in the production of 10%Co-4%Cr tungsten carbide cermets. Three HVOF guns (the JP-5000, JP-5000ST and DJ-2700) and one plasma gun, (the Mettech Axial III) were used to spray the same angular, agglomerated and crushed WC-10Co-4Cr powder. The DPV-2000 was used to monitor the in-flight velocity and temperature of the WC cermet sprayed particles. From those values, spray conditions were selected to produce coatings that were evaluated in terms of porosity, hardness and deposition efficiency. Results show that the plasma Axial III provides the highest particle temperature, between 2000°C and 2600°C, depending on the spray conditions. The JP-5000 imparts the highest velocity to the particles, between 550 m/s and 700 m/s, depending on the spray conditions. The ST version of the JP-5000 provides the same velocity as the standard version but with lower particle temperature. The DJ-2700 sprays particles with temperature and velocity between those of the JP5000 and the Mettech Axial III. Minimum porosity values of 2.1%, 3.7% and 5.3%) were obtained for the JP-5000, the DJ-2700 and the Axial III guns respectively. The porosity and carbide degradation are found to mostly depend on the particle velocity and temperature respectively. The values for the Vickers microhardness number (200g) ranged from 950 to 1250. Measurements of the deposition efficiency indicated a variation between 10 and 80%o, depending on the spray conditions and the gun used.

Arc spraying can be used to produce coatings to protect against wear and tear against erosion. This paper presents some results obtained within the core research program of the NRC Technology Group in Surface Engineering on the development of erosion-resistant coatings. A relationship is established between the volume loss of the material (performance) under different erosion conditions and the coating properties or the microstructure. The results show that the wear behavior of the arc-sprayed materials depends on the type, size and impact strength of the impacting eroding particles. It is observed that for soft materials, even if ductile tearing is an active mode of degradation, the brittle behavior of intersplat oxides also plays an important role. For harder materials, this brittle delamination of splats becomes the dominant erosive mechanism, as can be observed on the worn surfaces. Paper includes a German-language abstract.

Improvement of the high velocity oxy-fuel deposition (HVOF) process in the last decade has led to coatings with significant improved microstructures for better protection against wear and corrosion. HVOF coatings of cermet and metallic materials provide protection against erosion and are therefore good alternatives to the use of high-priced material. This paper presents the results of a study undertaken within the core research program of the National Research Council of Canada technology group in surface engineering, "SURFTEC", in which the performance of ten HVOF erosion-resistant coatings were evaluated under both dry and slurry erosion. Ten different types of HVOF coatings were studied including: six grades of WC with either Co or a Ni based matrix, one grade of Cr3C2 in a Ni-Cr matrix, and three grades of metallic alloy: Ni alloy, Co alloy and a SS 316-L. Coatings performance was evaluated with respect to the volume ratio and composition of metallic binder in carbide coatings, type of carbide, coating microstructure, impinging angle and the size of the erodent particles. All coatings were produced using the HVOF IP5000 system controlled by the Hawcs-II controller. Slurry jet erosion tests were conducted using a 10 %w/w alumina particle/water slurry. Two alumina particle sizes, 320 and 80 grit (nominal grain diameters 35 μm and 200 μm, respectively) were used. The nominal impact velocity of the slurry was 15 m/s and the nozzle-specimen distance 100 mm. Dry erosion tests were conducted using 50 μm diameter alumina particles projected onto coated flat test coupons through a carbide nozzle of diameter 1.14mm with a particle velocity of 84 m/s at a feed rate of 2 ±1 g/min. let impingement angles of 90° and 20° were used for both dry and slurry erosion tests. The volume loss of material under various erosion conditions was related to the coating properties and microstructure. Results indicate that the coating behavior is dependent on the erodent particle size, the erosion impinging angle to some extent and for slurry erosion, to the corrosion resistance of the cermet matrix.

Steel reinforcement corrosion is one of the most serious causes of the premature deterioration of North American bridges and parking garages. Carbon steel rebars are very vulnerable to corrosion in salt contaminated concrete from deicing or coastal environment since the chloride ions induce severe corrosion as they reach the reinforcing steel rebars and depassivate the carbon steel. This paper evaluates the potential of using stainless steel coatings as a means to protect steel rebars from corrosion, especially in a salt contaminated concrete environment. The 316 L stainless steel coated coupons and rebars were prepared using Arc-sprayed and HP/HVOF processes. The corrosion performance of coatings were evaluated using linear polarization, a.c. impedance and salt spray techniques. Metallographic examination was also performed to characterize the coating microstructure.