Cold spray Sn coating on the carbon fiber reinforced polymer

Because of their high specific strength, carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) has been widely employed in aerospace industries. Joining between metal parts and CFRP is crucial for fuselage from a lightning strike and internal decoration lightweight. Metal-coated CFRP as composite materials can introduce its high electricity, high strength, good surface quality, and strong corrosion resistance into both fuselage and structural parts. CFRP consists of carbon fibers and epoxy matrix; the thermosetting matrix in CFRP has low thermal resistance and brittle. Sn, as a soft and active material, is suitable for the metallization of CFRP material, but the coating research on CFRP leaves much to be desired. In this work, we aimed to introduce lightweight for internal aircraft components while retaining high strength, lightweight via fabricating Sn coating on the CFRP surface. Then, the interface of the coating and the CPRP substrate was analyzed to explicit its bonding mechanism during the cold spray process, and the optimal parameters are obtained. The gas pressure of 0.4 MPa, gas temperature of 473 K, and a spray distance of 20 mm has verified the optimist processing parameter. The bonding between Sn/epoxy, Sn/carbon fibers are explored.