Comparative study between high-velocity oxygen fuel and flame spraying using MCrAlY coats on a 304 stainless steel substrate

Abstract

High-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) and flame spraying (FS) are alternative methods to thermal spraying processes to produce dense high-quality coatings. The aim of this study is to compare the microstructure and mechanical properties for HVOF and FS using a thermally sprayed bond coat NiCoCrAlY and CoNiCrAlY powders on an AISI 304 stainless steel substrate. The microstructure and composition of coatings were characterized by an X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis and Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled to an Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) detector. HVOF showed higher quality coatings compared to FS in terms of porosity and the presence of unfused particles for both employed powders. The mechanical properties and results indicated that the yield strength of the NiCoCrAlY (HVOF) coating was 1.4-folds FS, but the flexural bending modulus was almost the same. For the CoNiCrAlY powder, HVOF gave a higher yield strength and a higher flexural modulus than FS as the oxygen affinity of the CoNiCrAlY powder was lower than NiCoCrAlY given the high Co content in the former versus the latter. The results also indicated that hardness increased by about 83%, and by 58% for the NiCoCrAlY HVOF and FS coating alloys, and by 42% and 20% more for the CoNiCrAlY HVOF and FS coatings than the stainless steel substrate hardness, respectively. Keywords: Flame spraying (FS), High velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF), MCrAlY, Thermal-barrier-coating (TBC), Bending test