A Comparison Of Coating Deposition Characteristics Under Different Plasma Jet Conditions

Plasma thermal spraying is an effective solution to produce wear, corrosion and thermal protective coatings on planar or radial symmetric parts. However, with the development of industrial applications there is an increasing demand for parts with more complex shape, for example, with small hole of different diameter. This, in turn, leads to the challenge to produce homogeneous coatings, eliminating the influence of the substrate’s shape complexity.

The present study investigates the coating characteristics deposited on complex substrate with different hole under plasma jet of different temperature and velocity. As feedstock material an agglomerated and sintered ZrO₂-7Y₂O₃ powder of 10-45 μm was used. For the spray experiments the subsonic and supersonic plasma jets were used. Correspondingly, the different particle temperature and velocity were considerable. The deposition morphology and properties (hardness and porosity) was shown in this study, and the influence of plasma jet and substrate’s shape complexity are also discussed.