The Potential of High-Velocity Air-Fuel Spraying (HVAF) to Manufacture Bond Coats for Thermal Barrier Coating Systems

Driven by the search for an optimum combination of particle velocity and process temperature to achieve dense hard metal coatings at high deposition efficiencies and powder feed rates, the high-velocity air-fuel spraying process (HVAF) was developed. In terms of achievable particle velocities and temperatures, this process can be classified between high-velocity oxy-fuel spraying (HVOF) and cold gas spraying (CGS). The particular advantages of HVAF regarding moderate process temperatures, high particle velocities as well as high productivity and efficiency suggest that the application of HVAF should be also investigated for the manufacture of MCrAlY (M = Co and/or Ni) bond coats (BCs) in thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems. In this work, corresponding HVAF spray parameters were developed based on detailed process analyses. Different diagnostics were carried out to characterize the working gas jet and the particles in flight. The coatings were investigated with respect to their microstructure, surface roughness and oxygen content. The spray process was assessed for its effectiveness. Process diagnostics as well as calculations of the gas flow in the jet and the particle acceleration and heating were applied to explain the governing mechanisms on the coating characteristics. The results show that HVAF is a promising alternative manufacturing process.

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Originally published at Journal of Thermal Spray Technology (27 September 2023)
By Georg Mauer, Karl-Heinz Rauwald, Yoo Jung Sohn, Robert Vaßen