Numerical Modeling of Bond Formation in Polymer Surface Metallization Using Cold Spray

Abstract

Surface metallization of polymeric materials using cold spray technology has gained increasing attention in the past decade. Experimental studies have evidenced multiple challenges of this process regarding continuity and homogeneity of the metallic deposits on polymer substrates. Modeling and simulation tools could be very helpful to assess the efficiency of different strategies suggested for improved deposition at a considerably reduced cost; nevertheless, the efforts to use numerical modeling in this sector have been less successful. Here, we develop a detailed finite element model for the cold spray deposition of metal particles on polymeric substrates to shed light on the underlying deposition mechanisms. The simulation results are compared with the literature experiments to establish the effectiveness of the proposed model. The developed model is able to capture the key phenomena involved in the deposition mechanism particularly the particle and substrate mechanical interlocking and substrate local melting. It is shown that a particle velocity threshold value should be exceeded to achieve an effective mechanical interlocking. The substate thermal domain and melting as well as the effects of particle velocity and size on deformation and particle anchorage are discussed.

A numerical study on the cold sprayability of carbon fibre reinforced composites

“…The three-dimensional numerical model was introduced in our previous work [10], considering the only PEEK substrate. Here, only the main points are recalled, introducing the different implementations due to the composite.…”

“…For a successful deposition, the starting and key point of the coating is the first layer which is dictated by the interlocking velocity. Our previous research [10] focused on the deformation of a single Copper particle, deposited onto polyether ether ketone (PEEK). It was shown numerically that for the mechanical interlocking, a velocity threshold exists below which the particle detaches from the substrate.…”

Cold Sprayed Metallic Coatings on Fibre-Reinforced Composites: A Machine Learning Approach for the Optimization of the Process

“…Thus, in the last few years, several computational models have been developed in order to predict the behaviour of a particle impacting a substrate, simulating the operating conditions of Cold Spray process [10][11][12]. However, as concerns the coating process applied to polymers and composites, to date the very few works have been published [13][14][15]. Nevertheless, it was not possible to develop a validated physical model to describe the phenomena occurring during the deposition of metallic particles on non-metallic substrates.…”

Thermographic Analysis of Composite Metallization through Cold Spray

“…These works showed that the particle velocity must be selected properly within a deposition window by tuning the processing parameters. In particular, for a successful deposition of the first metal-to-composite layer, corresponding to the beginning of the coating's growth, the velocity must be higher than the interlocking velocity of particles with the polymeric substrate, but lower than the erosion velocity of the polymer itself, as proved through experiments analyzing the whole coated layer [9,15] and the single-particle impact [16], as well as with complex numerical simulations [17,18].…”