John Victor Christy (201690408- Ph.D.

spring 2017)
MECHANICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THERMAL SPRAY COATING WITH A DISPERSION OF SOLID
LUBRICANT PARTICLES (Under Professor Abdel-Hamid Ismail Mourad, Mechanical Engineering Department)
Background: Why this infusion?
Need - low coefficient of friction to minimize Wear, improve efficiency, higher seizure resistance.
Thermal spray coatings -increase the life the component -reducing friction between mating surfaces
conventional thermal spray coatings can be improved by further lowering the coefficient of friction- apply
lubricant films to components
Lubricant films do not last long in high performance applications
additional lubricant in the thermal spray coating as the mating surfaces continue to contact and the thermal
spray coating continues to Wear down and become thinner.
Objectives of the planned work:
Development of a two (at present) tribological surfaces by coating thermal spray with dispersing solid
lubricant particles
Comparative study of the coatings on these two surfaces- Adhesion, abrasion, Scratch resistance
Techniques of Infusion?

Dispenser- coater : D- gun :

Substate selection

Base Coating

Bakelite
Martix substate
Aluminum core - nano
level infusion

SiO2
50 Micrometer film
and sprayed
D Gun Process fpr
spraying

Thermal Spray with

solid lubricant infusion
Thermal spray
Coatings: NiAl2O3
Solid lub: Graphite ,
PTFE
Mixed at 60% wt of
Al2O3 to 40% of
GRaphite /PTFE
High Velocity Simplex
gun spraying

Parameters to be observed:

Adhesion strength of coating

Abrasion Resistance
Coating material vs. wear resistance
Time vs. volume loss
Component reliability Failure rate.
ordinate

Mixture of oxygen and acetylene

High-temperature, high-pressure detonation wavemoves down the barrel heats the powder
Particles to their melting points or above
Accelerates- velocity of about 750 m/s of powder, is
introduced into a barrel and detonated using a spark.
After each detonation, the barrel is purged with
nitrogen
process is repeated 10 times per second.
Typical coating thicknesses - range of 0.05 to 0.50
mm 50um
Eliminates the interdependence of the plasma arc
with processing gases and flows.

Tribological Analysis

Mechanical Analysis

Erosive wear: Alumina

particle tester--> SEM
analysis
Abrasive wear: Three
body abarasion tester,
Reciprocating Scratch
testing
Adhesion testing

Mettalographic
testing on particle
infusion
Stress analysis
Temperature profiles
Failure Analyis

Comparitive study on
both PTFE and
Graphite substate
Matrix efficieny
Interpretaion of the
findings

Variables:

Solid Lubricant- PTFE, graphite

Erosion tester: abrasion spray angle,
Temp., Pressure
Two body abrasion tester:
Portion of thermal spray powders: solid
lubricants (6:4)

Possible Applications:

Optimisation of results
and findings

Coatings for tools and dies -reduces friction and improves tool life.
Piping coating- which carries effluents, abrasive medium etc.
Turbine shafts and blades coatings- depends on the stability analysis work obtained from experiments.