Application of HVOF and HVSFS for High Performance Mass Transport Vehicle Chassis Components

Efficient transport is a key requirement for a powerful economy and will continue to gain importance leading to the necessity for high performance transport vehicles. A highly loaded major component of trains is the chassis.

With increasing load, new materials and concepts have to be developed in order to increase the performance of these components. One approach to improving chassis components like joints is the deployment of thermally sprayed coatings by means of HVOF and HVSFS, which can significantly improve their wear resistance, prolong their life time and simultaneously reduce frictional losses.

Using the example of joints for train chassis, several HVOF-sprayed metallic, cermetic and ceramic coatings have been tested for their ability to improve the properties of the components. In addition to metallographic investigations, extensive mechanical tests on test rigs have been carried out to determine the performance of the coatings under realistic conditions.