Online Control and Monitoring of Plasma-Sprayed Ceramics: Plasma Jet and Powder Behavior and Coating Construction

The reproducibility and reliability of plasma - sprayed coatings is greatly improved by the monitoring and control of the macroscopic and microscopic process parameters. If commercial devices made it possible to monitor the powder behaviour and substrate temperature in industrial spray booths, investigations at laboratory scale provide for deeper understanding of emerging plasma processes as that using liquid feedstock and also of coating construction in conventional and liquid precursor plasma spaying. This paper reviews the diagnostic systems used at the Laboratory to better control the plasma spray process and presents the last results for ceramic coatings deposited by powder and liquid plasma spraying.