The present study compares needed prerequisites for the application of cavitation resistant bronzes by applying different coating techniques, such as cold spraying, HVOF spraying, warm spraying and arc spraying. By optimization to optimum cavitation resistance, the deposited coatings can increase the service life of ship rudders significantly and even serve as repair processes for ship propellers. The given overview aims to support the selection of processes when specifying the target properties to be set with regard to cavitation protection. By using high-pressure warm spraying and cold spraying, properties similar to those of cast nickel aluminum bronze were achieved, however at relatively high costs. In contrast, coatings produced by using HVOF and arc spraying have erosion rates that are only about four respectively three times higher as compared to cast nickel aluminum bronze, while far outperforming bulk shipbuilding steel. Hence, their properties should be sufficient for acceptable service life or docking intervals for ship rudder applications. Propeller repair might demand for better coating properties as obtained by cold spraying. With respect to costs, HVOF and arc spraying in summary might represent a good compromise to reach coating properties needed in application.

This work investigates the fundamental mechanical properties of SPS and APS thermal barrier coatings. SPS YSZ coatings had lower Young’s modulus values and higher interfacial toughness than APS deposited layers. The low stiffness of SPS coatings limits the elastic energy that can be stored in ceramic layers. This coupled with good interfacial toughness might make SPS deposited thermal barrier coatings less prone to delamination due to thermal cycling.

In this present work, investigators determine how particle temperature, combustion pressure, and heat treatment affect the porosity, oxide content, and tensile properties of warm-sprayed titanium. Coatings were deposited with nitrogen flow rates ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 m 3 /min and combustion pressures of 1 and 4 MPa. Optimal coating properties were found for specimens formed at a nitrogen flow rate of 0.75 m 3 /min and a combustion pressure of 4 MPa. Post-spray heat treatment was found to improve bonding between deposited particles, significantly increasing the strength and ductility of the titanium coatings.

This study investigates the effects of operating environment and temperature on the friction behavior of self-mated WC-CoCr coatings in sliding contact. Nickel superalloy substrates were coated with 86WC-10Co-4Cr powder using a warm spray gun. Coating cross-sections and surfaces were examined by SEM, XRD, EDX, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Tribological tests were conducted on a high-load tribometer at various temperatures in air, nitrogen gas, and distilled water. Test samples were examined by SEM and XPS, revealing wear patterns and elemental compositions while providing insights on oxide formation.

A new high-pressure warm spray gun was designed with the aim of increasing particle velocities to 1000 m/s for 30 µm Ti particle at 1000 °C or below. Nozzle geometry and combustion chamber pressure were optimized based on one-dimensional simulations. The flow rate of nitrogen gas injected into a mixing chamber was determined by calculation. The fuel injector was developed experimentally, its geometry optimized to spay small well-diffused droplets of kerosene into a 4 MPa chamber.

This study investigates particle velocities achieved by high-pressure warm spraying. Commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) and Ti-6Al-4V powders were deposited on different substrates while varying spray parameters to determine their effect on particle velocity and coating quality. Particle image velocimetry was used to measure particle velocity, which peaked at 1,000 m/s. Coatings obtained under optimized conditions were characterized based on porosity, oxygen content, and hardness. The results show that the increased velocity of high-pressure warm spraying has significant beneficial effects in terms of improving density and controlling porosity and oxygen content.

WC-Co/copper coatings with 8 layers were fabricated by warm spray deposition in order to investigate the effect of ductile layer inclusion on their fracture behavior. Bending strength, work of fracture, and surface hardness of freestanding coatings were examined by three point bending tests after removal of the substrates. The multilayered samples showed nonlinear stress-strain curves due to cracks in the WC-Co layers and plastic elongation of the copper layers. The multilayered samples with lower volume fraction of copper showed even lower bending strength than the monolithic samples of WC-Co and copper and no beneficial feature in mechanical performance was found. On the other hand, the samples containing higher volume fraction of copper exhibited more than twice higher work of fracture and moderately better bending strength than the monolithic WC-Co coatings, while the surface hardness was almost identical among all samples instead of the monolithic copper. The ductility of copper layers and the plastic constraint by the intact WC-Co layers attributed to enhance their mechanical properties. It has been concluded that cermet/metal laminate coatings can be one alternative approach to further improvement of the mechanical properties of thermal sprayed cermet coatings.

Thick titanium coatings were prepared by warm spraying (WS) and cold spraying (CS) process to investigate the oxidation and microstructure of the coating layers. Prior to the coating formations, the temperature and velocity of in-flight titanium powder particle were numerically calculated. Significant oxidation occurred in WS process using higher gas temperature conditions with low nitrogen flow rate, which is mixed to the flame jet of an HVOF spray gun in order to control the temperature of the propellant gas. Oxidation, however, decreased strikingly as the nitrogen flow rate increased. In CS process using nitrogen or helium as a propellant gas, little oxidation was observed. Although most of the cross-sections of the coating layers prepared by conventional mechanical polishing looked dense, coating cross sections prepared by an ion-milling method revealed the actual microstructures containing small pores and unbounded interfaces between deposited particles. Even when scanning electron microscopy or x-ray diffraction method did not detect oxides in the coating layers by WS using high nitrogen flow rate or CS using helium, the inert gas fusion method revealed minor increase of oxygen content below 0.3 wt%.

Mechanical properties of WC-Co coatings prepared by cold spraying (CS) and warm spraying (WS) have been studied with changing material parameters of Co content (12~25%), powder size (-45+15 and -20+5 µm) and WC particle size (0.2 and 1.8 µm) in this paper. The study reveals that a formation of undesirable phases such as W 2 C, W, and amorphous or nanocrystalline Co-W-C (eta) phase has been suppressed in the CS and WS coatings. Both coatings have high hardness, which is comparable to or superior to HVOF coatings as well as higher density (low porosity) than the HVOF. Abrasion wear test has shown that WS coatings has higher resistance than CS coatings within this study. As for powder properties, smaller powder and smaller WC particle sizes are effective to produce hard and dense coatings leading to higher wear resistance.

In Warm Spraying (WS), the temperature of the combustion flame is reduced and controlled by injecting nitrogen gas into the combustion flame before the injection of spray powders. Thus, temperatures of spray particles are kept under their melting points with moderately heated and thermally softened states. As compared to HVOF-spraying, the oxidation of particles can be significantly suppressed due to lower deposition temperatures, whereas, as compared to cold spraying, the degree of particle deformation upon impact can be enhanced by attaining higher particle temperatures. In the present study, Ti, Cu, and Al coatings were fabricated by WS under various nitrogen flow rates. The mechanical properties of the coatings were evaluated by tubular coating tensile (TCT) and micro flat tensile (MFT) tests. For the lower impact temperature regime, the coatings became denser and the ultimate strengths of Ti or Cu coatings increased reaching a maximum by decreasing the nitrogen flow rates. A further decrease of nitrogen flow rates and reaching the upper temperature regime reduced the coating strength. These results clearly demonstrate how particle temperatures affect the microstructures and mechanical properties of WS coatings and that optimum spray conditions have to be balanced between softening and oxidation by adjusting particle temperatures.

Warm Spray (WS) process, which can control the temperature of a combustion gas jet used to propel powder, has been successfully applied to deposit WC-Co coatings. Detrimental reactions resulting from dissolution of WC into Co binder and decarburization were suppressed effectively by keeping the WC-Co particles’ temperature below the m.p. of the binder phase. In this study, three nano-structured WC-12Co powders with different particle strength were prepared by changing the sintering conditions of spray-dried powder and were deposited by WS. The deposition efficiency and porosity of the coatings decreased with increasing the particle strength. The coating deposited from the powder with very low particle strength showed significant phase changes, while those deposited from the higher particle strengths showed almost no change. Particle Image Velocimetry revealed significant disintegration of the weakest powder, which explains the changes observed. The hardness and wear properties of the former coating, therefore, were inferior to the other two.

WC-Co thermal sprayed coatings are mainly used for wear protecting functions in various industries, for which high velocity oxy fuel (HVOF) spray is considered to be the best suited process. However, WC-Co HVOF coatings still have some defects as compared with sintered bulk, such as decarburization of WC and porous structure. Recently, experiments of WC-Co coatings using warm spray (WS) and cold spray processes have demonstrated some improvements in reduction of these defects. In particular, WS process seems to be a more promising process for WC-Co coatings from the previous work. In this study, wear resistant functions of WC-12%Co coatings prepared by HVOF and WS were investigated by abrasion and erosion tests. In addition, in-flight particles were captured and their characteristics such as the amount of decarburization, crystal phase, particle strength and particle size distribution were investigated to clarify the difference between HVOF and WS processes. The result shows that the wear resistances of the WC-Co WS coatings are comparable or superior to those of the HVOF coatings, which can be attributed to the difference in the amount of W 2 C and coatings porosity revealed by the in-flight particles and the coating microstructure. The result of the in-flight particle analysis also indicates that wear resistance of WS coatings can be further improved by optimizing the powder shape and chemical composition.

WC-Co cermet coatings were fabricated by using Warm Spraying, which is a modification of HVOF spraying to lower the temperature of the propellant gas below the melting point of Co. By changing the processing parameters, specimens were prepared for hardness, abrasion wear and particle erosion tests. Their microstructures were examined by SEM and XRD. The microstructure clearly showed the effects of suppression of the dissolution of WC into the Co phase, which is the major cause of embrittlement of the conventional HVOF sprayed WC-Co coatings. By combinations of adequate feedstock powder and processing parameters, it was possible to take advantage of fine WC grain size to prepare coatings with higher hardness (HV > 1400), smoother surface (Ra < 2 μm), and moderately improved wear performances compared with conventional HVOF coatings.

In this study, we investigated microstructures of thermal sprayed coatings and single deposited splats using two types of ion beam milling: one is argon ion beam for the cross-sectioning of thermal sprayed coatings in a cross section polisher, the other is gallium focused ion beam for the cross-sectioning and TEM sample preparation of single deposited splats. The cross section of WC-Co coatings fabricated by the polisher showed that it created a mirrored surface with minimizing artifacts such as pull-outs of ceramic particles or smearing of pores during conventional metallographic preparations. A thin and locally re-thinned membrane of single warm-sprayed nickel splat was feasible to observe the internal interface of particle/substrate in high resolution electron images. The substrate was heavily deformed by the impact of nickel particle with high kinetic and thermal energies. The particle and the substrate were intimately bonded without any voids or gaps.

In this present work, WC-Co coatings with different Co contents were deposited by warm spraying using two different powder sizes and their microstructure, hardness, fracture resistance, and wear properties were investigated. The coatings produced from fine powders showed higher hardness and better wear behavior for all Co contents than those deposited from coarse powders, which is attributed to improved splat-splat bonding and a reduction in porosity that comes with using fine powder.

The high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) process is commonly used to deposit WC-Co coatings. There are some problems with this process, especially the decomposition and decarburization of WC during the spraying. To eliminate these degradation, the warm-spray (WS) process originally developed by our group, which provides a possibility to control the flame temperature and the fabrication of WC-Co coatings can be made at lower temperature ranges that those of HVOF process, was applied to deposit WC-Co coatings. Microstructural characterization and phase analysis were carried out on deposited coatings by SEM and XRD. The mechanical properties such as hardness, fracture toughness, and wear properties were investigated. The results showed that WS coatings did not contain any detrimental phase such as W 2 C and W, which are usually observed in HVOF coatings. The hardness of WS coatings were lower than those of HVOF coatings, however, the relation of hardness-Co content of WS coatings showed the similar trend as that of the sintered WC-Co. The improvement of wear behavior was also observed in WS coatings.

In recent years, nano alumina/titania ceramic composite coatings have been investigated and exhibited very attractive properties in several mechanical applications such as wear resistance. One of the reasons for significant improvement of those coatings properties is considered to be “nanostructure” preserved in the coating during depositions. Thus, it is of interest to introduce nanostructure with high aspect ratio into coatings and to investigate the effects on the coating properties, especially fracture properties. In this study, alumina/titania composite powders were fabricated by spray dry procedure, which consist of the alumina nano particle (~50nm) and the titania nano fibers (diameter 100~200nm, length 2~3µm). The developed powders were sprayed by APS process. The deposited coatings contain fibrous titania structures which were not melted during deposition. Fracture resistance was evaluated as a function of a crack length by Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) Test for the coatings fabricated under various spray conditions and corresponded to the microstructure.

Titanium particles were deposited on a steel substrate by the impact of high velocity in warm spraying. In the process, nitrogen gas at various flow rates was mixed to control the temperature of a supersonic gas flow generated by combustion. TEM and other techniques were used to analyze the microstructure of the interface between the titanium coatings and the substrate. At the lower nitrogen flow rate, thick oxide double layers in the interface region were observed. The adhesive strength of the coating was high even at lower particles’ velocity possibly because the mechanical interlocking between the titanium particle and the substrate could be enhanced by the high deformability of heated particles. As the nitrogen flow rate increased, however, just a little oxide and a very thin oxide layer covering on the titanium splats were locally detected. The highly localized pressure and the resultant intensive shear stress generated within a titanium particle by the impact could reveal the fresh metal surface through break-up of the thin oxide films on the particle and the substrate. As a result, the metallic bonding between the deposited particle and the substrate was formed and increased the adhesive strength remarkably beyond a certain impact velocity.

Recently, the thermal spray community has focused considerable attention on Cold Spray and Warm Spray techniques, in which the temperatures of sprayed particles are kept under the melting points and adhesion occurs based on the impact phenomenon between a solid particle and a substrate. The mechanisms of adhesion are still unclear but the degree of the mechanical deformation at the interface is considered to be one key factor. However, it is very difficult to directly measure the strain at the interface. Instead, in this work, the strain fields on a substrate around an impacted particle were measured by applying Electron Moiré method, and corresponded to the spray conditions by a warm spray deposition.

Warm Spray has demonstrated that it could fabricate comparatively dense metal coatings keeping with high purity during the atmospheric process. Its key technology is the control of the temperature of the supersonic combustion jet prior to supplying feedstock. So far, even titanium (Ti), known as one of materials difficult for the atmospheric process, could be deposited with less oxidation and higher density of the resulting coatings. For instance, the porosity and oxygen content of two coatings obtained were 2.3 vol% and 0.28mass%, and 1.1vol% and 0.92mass%, respectively. Further densification of Ti coatings was achieved by bi-modal size distribution of feedstock powder upon Warm Spraying in this study. When bigger Ti particles were mixed with the usual feedstock powder under 45 µm, the coating porosity was decreased to 0.8vol% simultaneously with the low oxygen content of 0.26mass%, which was comparable to the level of feedstock powder. This densification is caused by the balance of the enhancement of the peening effect by big particles and of optimization of the filling rate of the big and small particles.