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 lm compared to * 40 lm for untreated feedstock). Improved particlesubstrate bonding was evidenced by formation of jets at the particle boundaries.
The heat-treatment of a number of gas atomised aluminium alloys prior to cold spraying recently showed that the resultant microstructural modification was accompanied by an improvement in deposition; however, the relationship between the microstructural homogenisation occurring after recrystallisation and the increase in deposition efficiency and particle-particle bonding had not been investigated. In this study, Al 6061 gas atomised feedstock powder, before and after solution heattreatment, was cold sprayed and these materials were characterised using electron backscatter diffraction. The solution heat-treated Al 6061 powder showed large stress-free grains as opposed to the as-atomised feedstock powder which exhibited smaller grains with the presence of dislocations. The coating produced from as-received powder exhibited a homogeneous distribution of misorientation and lattice defects throughout the particles, whereas the coating produced from solution heat-treated powder showed an accumulation of dislocations in the interfacial zones. For the first time, a mechanism was proposed where this phenomenon was attributed to localised deformation of the heat-treated particle's exterior due to the dissolution of precipitates in the intermetallic network. The accumulation of dislocations in the interfacial area enhanced the rotation of subgrains to accommodate the plastic deformation, thus improving the particle-particle bonding.
Thermal spray is a versatile process that produces high-quality coatings possessing diverse properties such as superhydrophobicity, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, dielectric properties etc. Conventionally, powder feedstock is used in thermal spray, and this process is commercialised in numerous industrial processes. However, liquid feedstock based thermal spray is still in its development phases, due to limited information available on process parameters. Various parameters such as plasma/fuel gas, plasma current, feedrate, feeding angle, type of feedstock (suspension or solution precursor), feedstock concentration, feedstock viscosity, solvent, etc. significantly influence the thermal and kinetic energy exchange between plasma/flame and feedstock material. Suspension plasma spray (SPS) and suspension high velocity oxy-fuel spray (SHVOF), once optimised, can give rise to coatings with multiscale features. An in-depth understanding of the complex interaction between feedstock solution/suspension chemical-physical properties and plasma/flame jet characteristics is essential to understand its specific impact on coating properties and their application. This paper presents comparisons between two different TiO2 coatings, deposited by SPS and S-HVOF, and obtained by varying some of the fundamental spray deposition parameters. The surface morphology and cross-sections of the as-deposited coatings were compared through SEM/EDX. Further, surface wetting properties were analysed through measuring the static and dynamic contact angles.
Common issues such as ice formation on wind turbine blades and lightning strikes on airplanes can be mitigated by metallizing polymers and composites used on the outer surface of the component. Cold gas dynamic spray is a novel process that has the potential to be used for metallization of polymer and composite surfaces to produce electrically and/or thermally conductive components. In this study, mixed Cu-Zn and Al-Zn feedstock powders were deposited onto polypropylene and nylon-6 substrates to investigate the viability of metallizing nonmetallic surfaces using a commercially available low-pressure cold spray process. The behavior of the individual metallic particles upon impact on the polymers and the deformation of the substrate were characterized by coating the two feedstock powders onto a nylon-6 substrate over a wide temperature range. The Cu-Zn coating was deposited in thicknesses up to 1 mm onto the nylon-6 substrate using optimized parameters. To understand the deposition of the metallic powder onto the polymers, the process was modeled using computational fluid dynamics methods. The correlation of the gas and particle modeling with examination of the coating microstructure highlighted the major importance of the particle velocity during cold spray deposition.
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