An analysis of the cold spray process and its coatings

In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and extensive spray tests were performed for detailed analyses of the cold spray process. The modeling of the gas and particle flow field for different nozzle geometries and process parameters in correlation with the results of the experiments reveal that adhesion only occurs when the powder particles exceed a critical impact velocity that is specific to the spray material. For spherical copper powder with low oxygen content, the critical velocity was determined to be about 570 m/s. With nitrogen as the process gas and particle grain sizes from 5–25 μm, deposition efficiencies of more than 70% were achieved. The cold sprayed coatings show negligible porosity and oxygen contents comparable to the initial powder feedstock. Therefore, properties such as the electrical conductivity at room temperature correspond to those of the bulk material. The methods presented here can also be applied to develop strategies for cold spraying of other materials such as zinc, stainless steel, or nickel-based super-alloys.     

Examination of the critical velocity for deposition of particles in cold spraying

The critical velocity of copper (Cu) particles for deposition in cold spraying was estimated both experimentally and theoretically. An experimental method is proposed to measure the critical velocity based on the theoretical relationship between deposition efficiency and critical velocity at different spray angles. A numerical simulation of particle impact deformation is used to estmate the critical velocity. The theoretical estimation is based on the critical velocity corresponding to the particle velocity at which impact begins to cause adiabatic shear instability. The experimental deposition was conducted using Cu particles of different particle sizes, velocities, oxygen contents, and temperatures. The dependency of the critical velocity on particle temperature was examined. Results show that the critical velocity can be reasonably measured by the proposed test method, which detects the change of critical velocity with particle temperature and oxygen content. The Cu particles of oxygen content 0.01 wt.% yielded a critical velocity of about 327 m/s. Experiments show that the oxygen content of powder significantly influences the critical velocity. Variations in oxygen content can explain the large discrepancies in critical velocity that have been reported by different investigators. Critical velocity is also found to be influenced by particle temperature as well as types of materials. High particle temperature causes a decrease in critical velocity. This effect is attributed to the thermal softening at elevated temperatures. The original version of this paper was published in the CD ROM Thermal Spray Connects: Explore Its Surfacing Potential, International Thermal Spray Conference, sponsored by DVS, ASM International, and HW International Institute of Welding, Basel, Switzerland, May 2–4, 2005, DVS-Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany.     

New developments in cold spray based on higher gas and particle temperatures

In cold spraying, bonding is associated with shear instabilities caused by high strain rate deformation during the impact. It is well known that bonding occurs when the impact velocity of an impacting particle exceeds a critical value. This critical velocity depends not only on the type of spray material, but also on the powder quality, the particle size, and the particle impact temperature. Up to now, optimization of cold spraying mainly focused on increasing the particle velocity. The new approach presented in this contribution demonstrates capabilities to reduce critical velocities by well-tuned powder sizes and particle impact temperatures. A newly designed temperature control unit was implemented to a conventional cold spray system and various spray experiments with different powder size cuts were performed to verify results from calculations. Microstructures and mechanical strength of coatings demonstrate that the coating quality can be significantly improved by using well-tuned powder sizes and higher process gas temperatures. The presented optimization strategy, using copper as an example, can be transferred to a variety of spray materials and thus, should boost the development of the cold spray technology with respect to the coating quality. This article was originally published inBuilding on 100 Years of Success, Proceedings of the 2006 International Thermal Spray Conference (Seattle, WA), May 15–18, 2006, B.R. Marple, M.M. Hyland, Y.-Ch. Lau, R.S. Lima, and J. Voyer, Ed., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 2006.     

Preparation and characterization of magnesium coating deposited by cold spraying

Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys have a great potential as structural materials due to their beneficial combination of high strength to weight ratio, high thermal conductivity and good machinability. However, few works about Mg coatings fabricated by cold spraying can be found in the literature. Thus, Mg coatings prepared at different main gas temperatures by cold spraying were investigated as well as their microstructure, phase structure, oxygen content and microhardness. The critical velocity of the particle was evaluated through numerical simulations. The particle deformation behavior and bonding mechanism were discussed. The result of the oxygen content measurement shows that the oxygen contents of coatings did not increase compared with that of the feedstock powder. The simulation results show that the critical velocity of Mg particles was in the range from 653 m/s to 677 m/s. The observation of the coating fracture morphology shows that the formation of the coating was due to the intensive plastic deformation and mechanical interlocking. The microhardness of the coating increased with the increase of the main gas temperature from 350 °C to 450 °C due to the decrease of the coating porosity.     

Warm Spray Forming of Ti-6Al-4V

Warm spray (WS) is a modification of high-velocity oxy-fuel spraying, in which the temperature of the supersonic gas flow generated by the combustion of kerosene and oxygen is controlled by diluting the combustion flame with an inert gas such as nitrogen. The inert gas is injected into the mixing chamber placed between the combustion chamber and the powder feed ports, thus the temperature of the propellant gas can be controlled from ~700 to 2,000 K. Since WS allows for higher particle temperatures in comparison to cold spray, warm sprayed particles are more softened upon impact, thus resulting in greater deformation facilitating the formation of shear instability for bonding. Recently, the combustion pressure of WS has been increased from 1 (low-pressure warm spray) to 4 MPa (high-pressure warm spray) in order to increase the velocity of sprayed particles. Effects of spray parameters on microstructure, mechanical properties, and splats formation of Ti-6Al-4V were systematically studied. Obtained coatings were examined by analyzing the coating cross-section images, microhardness as well as oxygen content. In addition, flattening ratio of splats was calculated as a function of nitrogen flow rate. It was found that the increased particle velocity caused by the increased combustion pressure had significant beneficial effects in terms of improving density and controlling the oxygen level in the sprayed Ti-6Al-4V coatings.     

Diagnostics of Cold-Sprayed Particle Velocities Approaching Critical Deposition Conditions

In cold spraying, the impact particle velocity plays a key role for successful deposition. It is well known that only those particles can achieve successful bonding which have an impact velocity exceeding a particular threshold. This critical velocity depends on the thermomechanical properties of the impacting particles at impacting temperature. The latter depends on the gas temperature in the torch but also on stand-off distance and gas pressure. In the past, some semiempirical approaches have been proposed to estimate particle impact and critical velocities. Besides that, there are a limited number of available studies on particle velocity measurements in cold spraying. In the present work, particle velocity measurements were performed using a cold spray meter, where a laser beam is used to illuminate the particles ensuring sufficiently detectable radiant signal intensities. Measurements were carried out for INCONEL^® alloy 718-type powders with different particle sizes. These experimental investigations comprised mainly subcritical spray parameters for this material to have a closer look at the conditions of initial deposition. The critical velocities were identified by evaluating the deposition efficiencies and correlating them to the measured particle velocity distributions. In addition, the experimental results were compared with some values estimated by model calculations.     

冷喷涂中粉末处理及复合技术研究进展

冷喷涂是近年来发展起来的一种固态材料沉积技术,具有沉积温度低、沉积速度大、沉积效率高等特点,在金属材料尤其是温度敏感的金属材料固态喷涂成型方面具有明显优势。冷喷涂中,喷涂粉末的状态（包括形状、尺寸和含氧量等）对整个涂层的影响较大,对冷喷涂粉末进行改性和合理设计显得十分重要。阅读和整理近年来冷喷涂研究领域中喷涂粉末的前处理技术,主要包括粉末预热和热处理以及粉末复合技术,粉末复合技术的主要方法有机械混合法、球磨法、造粒法和包覆法等。总结整理了各种技术的优缺点,可为冷喷涂过程中粉末处理技术的选择提供参考。     

Bonding mechanism in cold gas spraying

Cold gas spraying is a relatively new coating process by which coatings can be produced without significant heating of the sprayed powder. In contrast to the well-known thermal spray processes such as flame, arc, and plasma spraying, in cold spraying there is no melting of particles prior to impact on the substrate. The adhesion of particles in this process is due solely to their kinetic energy upon impact. Experimental investigations show that successful bonding is achieved only above a critical particle velocity, whose value depends on the temperature and the thermomechanical properties of the sprayed material. This paper supplies a hypothesis for the bonding of particles in cold gas spraying, by making use of numerical modelling of the deformation during particle impact. The results of modelling are assessed with respect to the experimentally evaluated critical velocities, impact morphologies and strengths of coatings. The analysis demonstrates that bonding can be attributed to adiabatic shear instabilities which occur at the particle surface at or beyond the critical velocity. On the basis of this criterion, critical velocities can be predicted and used to optimise process parameters for various materials.     

Effect of Particle Morphology and Size Distribution on Cold-Sprayed Pure Titanium Coatings

The effects of commercially pure titanium particle morphology (spherical, sponge, and irregular) and size distributions (mean particle sizes of 20-49 μm) on the cold spray process and resulting coating properties were investigated. Numerous powder and coating characterizations were performed including: powder oxygen and nitrogen contents, powder flowability, powder compressibility, coating microhardness, coating porosity, LOM/SEM analyses, and XRD. Compared to spherical powders, the sponge and irregular CP-Ti powders had higher oxygen content, poorer powder flowability, higher compression ratio, lower powder packing factor, and higher average particle impact velocities. XRD results showed no new phases present when comparing the various feedstock powders to corresponding coatings. A higher particle temperature was also obtained with larger particle size for all feedstock powder morphologies processed with the same set of spray parameters. A spherical powder with 29 μm mean particle size was found to have the lowest porosity coating and best cold sprayability. The relationships of several as-cold sprayed coating characteristics to the ratio of particle impact and critical velocities were also discussed.     

冷喷涂TC4涂层临界沉积速度计算及制备涂层性能研究

目的研究冷喷涂TC4涂层的临界沉积速度及粒子温度对临界沉积速度的影响规律,并研究气体压强对沉积涂层性能的影响规律。方法理论研究上,采用有限元LS-DYNA软件中的Johnson-Cook塑性模型,选取3D164计算单元建立模型,研究粒子在不同温度和不同速度下碰撞基体后的形貌特征,确定粒子沉积临界速度。试验研究上,采用N_2作为冷喷涂驱动气体,在TC4合金上制备TC4涂层,然后采用SEM、Image J图像分析软件、硬度计等分析已沉积涂层的孔隙率和硬度等性能。结果 25、400、500、600℃温度下,计算表明10μm的TC4合金粒子在TC4基板上的临界沉积速度分别为730、465、392、361 m/s,即随粒子温度升高,粒子临界沉积速度降低,粒子沉积成涂层更容易。采用冷喷涂工艺在TC4基板上沉积TC4涂层,在N_2温度600℃、气体压力3 MPa的条件下,制备的TC4涂层厚度约1000μm,与TC4钛合金基体结合紧密,涂层孔隙率约为6.46%。结论气体温度升高,粒子临界沉积速度降低;气体压强变大,制备的涂层厚度就大且更加致密。     

Critical Deposition Condition of CoNiCrAlY Cold Spray Based on Particle Deformation Behavior

Previous research has demonstrated deposition of MCrAlY coating via the cold spray process; however, the deposition mechanism of cold spraying has not been clearly explained—only empirically described by impact velocity. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the critical deposit condition. Microscale experimental measurements of individual particle deposit dimensions were incorporated with numerical simulation to investigate particle deformation behavior. Dimensional parameters were determined from scanning electron microscopy analysis of focused ion beam-fabricated cross sections of deposited particles to describe the deposition threshold. From Johnson-Cook finite element method simulation results, there is a direct correlation between the dimensional parameters and the impact velocity. Therefore, the critical velocity can describe the deposition threshold. Moreover, the maximum equivalent plastic strain is also strongly dependent on the impact velocity. Thus, the threshold condition required for particle deposition can instead be represented by the equivalent plastic strain of the particle and substrate. For particle-substrate combinations of similar materials, the substrate is more difficult to deform. Thus, this study establishes that the dominant factor of particle deposition in the cold spray process is the maximum equivalent plastic strain of the substrate, which occurs during impact and deformation.     

Influence of Helium and Nitrogen Gases on the Properties of Cold Gas Dynamic Sprayed Pure Titanium Coatings

This study investigates the effect of propellant gas, helium, and nitrogen during cold spraying of titanium coatings. Coatings were characterized by SEM and were evaluated for their deposition efficiency (DE), microhardness, and porosity. In selected conditions, three particle velocities were investigated in which for each condition, the propelling gases?? temperature and pressure were attuned to attain similar particle velocities for each gas. Observations show that loosely bonded particles can be detached by high-pressure supersonic gas stream. Selected coatings were characterized by XPS to analyze the occurrence of oxidation and nitridation. Although generally accepted that coating characteristics can be affected by particle temperature, results show that for the same particle velocity, DE and coating density are also a function of substrate temperature. In addition, a thick and fully dense cold sprayed titanium coating was achieved with optimized spray parameters and nozzle using helium. The corresponding average particle velocity was 1173 m/s.     

FeAl and Mo–Si–B intermetallic coatings prepared by thermal spraying

FeAl and Mo–Si–B intermetallic coatings for elevated temperature environmental resistance were prepared using high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) and air plasma spray (APS) techniques. For both coating types, the effect of coating parameters (spray particle velocity and temperature) on the microstructure and physical properties of the coatings was assessed. Fe–24Al (wt%) coatings were prepared using HVOF thermal spraying at spray particle velocities varying from 540 to 700 m/s. Mo–13.4Si–2.6B coatings were prepared using APS at particle velocities of 180 and 350 m/s. Residual stresses in the HVOF FeAl coatings were compressive, while stresses in the APS Mo–Si–B coatings were tensile. In both cases, residual stresses became more compressive with increasing spray particle velocity due to increased peening imparted by the spray particles. The hardness and elastic moduli of FeAl coatings also increased with increasing particle velocity. For Mo–Si–B coatings, plasma spraying at 180 m/s resulted in significant oxidation of the spray particles and conversion of the T1 phase into amorphous silica and -Mo. The T1 phase was retained after spraying at 350 m/s.     

Bonding,Reactivity, and Mechanical Properties of the Kinetic-Sprayed Deposition of Al for a Thermally Activated Reactive Cu Liner

Pure Al coatings were fabricated on Cu substrates via kinetic spraying to produce a thermally activated reactive Cu liner. The coatings need to endure high-strain rate severe plastic deformation and react with oxygen during penetration or after penetration of the liner. In this study, the Al powder underwent large exothermic reactions with a small particle size and fast heating rate, as determined from the differential scanning calorimetric analysis. Process optimization of the Al deposition was facilitated by defining the “critical velocity” of an Al particle in the kinetic spraying process based on numerical modeling and computations using ABAQUS finite element codes. The simulation results revealed that the critical velocity of an Al particle at room temperature (RT) is 780 m/s and it decreases as the particle temperature increases. Certain process conditions resulted in improved coating properties as the temperature of the particles was affected by the process gas temperature and pressure. The mechanical properties such as the bond strength of the coatings formed under various process conditions were evaluated and compared. The relationships between the resulting properties, processing conditions, and the structures of the coatings are discussed.     

冷喷涂制备金属涂层及其在增材制造应用中的研究进展

冷喷涂由于具有粉末加热温度低、涂层中氧含量及孔隙率较常规热喷涂涂层显著降低等特点,而广泛应用于制备各种类型的涂层或块体材料。近年来,冷喷涂设备及工艺的改善使其在增材制造和零件修复方面也具有极大的应用前景。综述了冷喷涂制备高性能软质相金属和硬质相金属/非金属涂层的研究进展,重点围绕原始颗粒结构、冷喷涂工艺参数、添加第二相和后处理手段对涂层制备及性能优化的效果进行总结,并对冷喷涂制备复合涂层的结合机理进行了阐述,包括软质相颗粒形成单一涂层和添加硬质相颗粒复合涂层的结合机理,且涂层中颗粒之间的结合主要为机械结合、物理结合、冶金结合和化学结合中的一种或多种结合形式。同时,介绍了冷喷涂技术在增材制造领域和零件修复方面的研究进展和存在的问题。最后,分析总结了冷喷涂的应用前景和存在的问题。     

Microstructural Evolution in Solution Heat Treatment of Gas-Atomized Al Alloy (7075) Powder for Cold Spray

Cold gas dynamic spray is being explored as a repair technique for high-value metallic components, given its potential to produce pore and oxide-free deposits of between several micrometers and several millimeters thick with good levels of adhesion and mechanical strength. However, feedstock powders for cold spray experience rapid solidification if manufactured by gas atomization and hence can exhibit non-equilibrium microstructures and localized segregation of alloying elements. Here, we used sealed quartz tube solution heat treatment of a precipitation hardenable 7075 aluminum alloy feedstock to yield a consistent and homogeneous powder phase composition and microstructure prior to cold spraying, aiming for a more controllable heat treatment response of the cold spray deposits. It was shown that the dendritic microstructure and solute segregation in the gas-atomized powders were altered, such that the heat-treated powder exhibits a homogeneous distribution of solute atoms. Micro-indentation testing revealed that the heat-treated powder exhibited a mean hardness decrease of nearly 25% compared to the as-received powder. Deformation of the powder particles was enhanced by heat treatment, resulting in an improved coating with higher thickness (~ 300 μm compared to ~ 40 μm for untreated feedstock). Improved particle–substrate bonding was evidenced by formation of jets at the particle boundaries.     

多功能超音速火焰喷涂粒子特性的数值模拟

通过建立多功能超音速火焰喷涂火焰流场的数值模型,对超音速火焰喷涂粒子的速度特性和温度特性进行数值模拟,其结果揭示了多功能超音速火焰喷涂粒子的速度和温度的变化规律.根据数值模拟结果分析了粉末粒度对火焰焰流速度和温度的影响,用不同粒度参数重复模拟计算,这对喷涂粉末的加速和加热性能具有重要意义.     

基于稳定最大应变的冷喷涂粒子临界速度预测

利用ABAQUS显式有限元分析软件,对冷喷涂铜粒子与铜基体的碰撞过程进行了欧拉法数值分析.结果表明,欧拉模型可有效模拟冷喷涂粒子碰撞变形行为,粒子撞击基体形貌的模拟结果与试验观察吻合较好.在不同碰撞速度下,最大等效塑性应变均会快速上升并达到各自稳定值,并且在290～400 m/s内稳定等效应变最大值基本不变,但随着粒子速度增加,粒子扁平化程度、与基体结合面积与金属射流量均明显增加.最后,结合金属射流形貌与等效塑性应变稳定最大值的变化规律,提出了一种冷喷涂粒子临界速度预测的新方法,计算获得了20 μm铜粒子冷喷涂临界速度约为290m/s.     

Oxidation of stainless steel in the high velocity oxy-fuel process

The high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) spray process has been primarily used for the application of wear-resistant coatings and, with the introduction of new, more powerful systems, is being increasingly considered for producing corrosion-resistant coatings. In this study, the influence of various spray parameters for the JP-5000 and Diamond Jet (DJ) Hybrid systems on the oxidation of stainless steel 316L is characterized. Experimental results reveal that coating oxygen contents of less than 1 wt.% can be more easily attained with the JP-5000 than the DJ Hybrid systems because of the former’s design. In both cases, however, the low particle temperatures necessary for low oxygen content coatings may impair bond and cohesive strength. Heat treating the coatings after processing reduces hardness, metallurgically enhances bond strength, and enables the spheroidization of oxide layers surrounding unmelted particles. An empirical model describing oxidation in the thermal spray process was expanded to explain the oxidation in the HVOF spraying of stainless steel. It was concluded that for these oxygen-sensitive materials, maintaining a relatively low particle temperature throughout the spray process minimizes oxygen pickup by preventing an autocatalytic oxidation process and particle fragmentation upon impact. For the DJ Hybrid systems, understoichiometric fuel settings are selected, whereas for the JP-5000, oxygen-rich mixtures are preferred.