This paper is a first report of thermally sprayed Ti 60 Cr 32 Si 8 (at-%) alloy coating. It has been reported previously that such an alloy assumes quasicrystallinity in presence of oxygen, when made to undergo rapid quenching. In these cases, either TiO or SiO 2 is used as an ingredient in the alloy so that it can act as a source of oxygen. This paper describes an attempt to produce a quasicrystal by thermally spraying the alloy in air, i.e. in presence of oxygen, either by flame or atmospheric plasma spraying. The spray parameters for both the processes have been varied in the experiment in a wide range. A vacuum plasma sprayed coating served as the reference. This investigation includes a detailed study of the microstructure and phases by optical microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X–Ray diffractometry (XRD), microhardness and porosity. An estimate of the composition of the coating has been done using Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GDOES). The parametric variations have been correlated with the coating microstructure. It has been found in the study that there is a likelihood of obtaining quasicrystalline phase by atmospheric plasma spraying of this alloy under favourable parametric conditions. The tribological properties of these coatings were studied using a ball on disc reciprocating tribometer.

This investigation deals with a study of the friction, wear and corrosion behavior of vacuum plasma sprayed quasicrystalline (QC) Ti 41.5 Zr 41.5 Ni 17 coatings. During pin on disc experiments, a change in the mode of wear has been found to occur with corresponding changes in normal load and sliding velocity. The low thermal conductivity of quasicrystals and its brittleness play a vital role in determining the friction and wear behavior of such materials. When these coatings are subjected to rubbing for a longer period of time, wear occurs by subsurface crack propagation and subsequent delamination within the coated layer. By comparing the QC to its polycrystalline counterpart during potentiodynamic measurements according to ASTM G 31, higher currents were found over the whole range of potentials for QC when immersed in 1MHCl solution.