Nanocomposite Coatings for Oil and Gas

Wear and corrosion cost the exploration and production industry more than $7B annually in downtime and replacement costs.  Deeper and longer drillstrings, demanding hydraulic fracturing requirements, and hotter and more hostile developments are driving the need for improved solutions.  Nanocomposite cermet coatings offer solutions to the high cost of carbide overlays, while providing superior corrosion, spallation, and wear resistance compared to chrome, carbides, and amorphous metal alternatives.  This paper will discuss performance and economics of PComP™ nanocomposite cermet thermal spray feedstocks and their resultant coatings.  These nitride-based nanocomposite coatings provide high strain tolerance, compatability with advanced and high strength alloys (high spallation limit and low to zero fatigue debit), as well as higher application rates, faster machining (including the ability to single point turn in some cases), improved impact/damage resistance, and better wear and corrosion performance than micron-scale and carbide alternatives.  This paper will present corrosion, friction, and wear data for two compositional families of these hierarchically-structured nanocomposite cermet coating systems