High-Velocity Air-Fuel Spraying and Its Applications in Oil and Gas Industry

Recent developments of High-Velocity Air-Fuel (HVAF) spraying and blasting focused on a substantial increase of spray particles velocity. The efforts further improved coating quality, allowing deposition of metallic and carbide-base coatings non-permeable to gas at thickness as low as 40-50 micron. The coatings demonstrate low dissolved oxygen content, a favorable combination of high hardness and toughness. Coupled with the enhanced technological efficiency of modern HVAF equipment, this initiated not only the acceptance of HVAF technologies in established thermal spray markets in the oil and gas industry, but also the development and successful implementation of new coating applications. The examples are wear and corrosion resistant tungsten carbide-based coatings on hydraulics rods of dock cranes, corrosion resistant Ni-Cr-Mo-type coatings on vessels of sulfur removal equipment, tungsten carbide –based coatings on restriction grit and slide gate orifices of catalytic towers, high-temperature erosion resistant chromium carbide- based coatings on thermawells, wear and cavitation resistant Co-Cr-W-C-type coatings on housing wear rings and impeller hubs of high-temperature pumps.