As structural materials for future fusion power plants, reduced activation ferritic martensitic steels as EUROFER97 can be used. Unfortunately, the interaction of the plasma with the steel would result in a limited lifetime, so protective layers are investigated. An excellent protective material is tungsten, as it shows unique properties with respect to low sputtering, high melting points and low activation. However, the mismatch of thermo-physical properties between tungsten and EUROFER97 can lead to large stress levels and even failure. A possible way to overcome this problem is the use of functionally graded material (FGM). The paper will describe the manufacture of these FGMs by vacuum plasma spraying and their characterization. First of all, two different feeding lines have been used to produce the coatings. A major problem lies in different melting points of tungsten and steel. So the particle size distribution has to be adjusted to achieve sufficient melting of both materials during the spray process. In a second step, the feeding rates were optimized to obtain the wanted amount of tungsten and steel phases in the graded structures. In a thermal spray process, the gradient cannot be made continuously, however it has to be applied in a step-wise manner. In this investigation, samples with 3 and 5 different concentrations (excluding the pure steel and tungsten part) have been produced. The microstructures of these layers have been investigated. In addition, hardness was measured and the residual stress state was determined by the hole drilling method.
The contribution comprises the investigation of the microstructure and residual stresses in thermally sprayed Mn1.0Co1.9Fe0.1O4.0 (MCF) protective coatings for interconnectors of SOFC stacks, deposited on ferritic steel Crofer 22 APU via atmospheric plasma spraying (APS). The coatings are designated to prevent Cr evaporation during high operation temperature of the SOFCs. The local microstructure, pore distributions and pore shapes, phase fractions, micro-hardness, Youngs’ modulus and residual stresses through the coating thickness were characterized in as-sprayed state and compared with longtime (10-100 h) heat-treated samples (700 and 850 °C). The results show that the long-term thermal aging treatment causes a successive high sintering of the coatings characterized by a reduction in pore density, by phase transformation from the metastable rock salt structure that gradually transformed to a spinel structure and by a slight relaxation of the process-induced tensile residual stresses in the coating. For SOFC application of the MCF coating, this indicates an improvement in the coatings integrity. During operation, a self-repair proceeds leading to dense and gas-proof coatings, while the mechanical properties are mainly retained.
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