Influence of powder properties on residual stresses formed in high-pressure liquid fuel HVOF sprayed WC-CoCr coatings

This paper presents a systematic study of the effect of various WC-CoCr powders on the residual stresses of the high pressure HVOF sprayed coating. As the residual stresses are recognized to play a significant role in the mechanical and fatigue resistance of the coating, it is understandable that their management is important for damage tolerant coating design. Several studies have recently shown that processes, which produce high particle kinetic energy and lower particle temperature, such as Warm spray, HVAF and high-pressure HVOF processes, generate higher peening stresses and therefore final residual stresses is more compressive compared to lower kinetic energy HVOF systems. In addition to the spraying process, powder properties are known to be one of the most important variables in thermal spraying. Nevertheless, only few studies can be found on the effect of powder properties on residual stresses. The aim of this study was to understand the effect of different powder properties on the formation of residual stress. In situ monitoring was utilized to record curvature and temperature during spraying and to calculate coating residual stresses. This approach is a useful tool for understanding of residual stresses during the thermal spraying process enabling their manipulation. It was found that the powders, with only minor differences in density and particle size, produced a significant difference of about 350 MPa in the stress states of the coatings. The combined effect of spray powder properties and spray parameters on residual stress was almost 560 MPa.