Different Cold Spray Deposition Strategies: Single- and Multi-layers to Repair Aluminium Alloy Components

摘要

Cold spraying is increasingly being used for reconstruction or repair of damaged aluminium alloy components, especially in the aviation industry. Both thin (< 0.5 mm) and thick (up to 1 cm) coatings are necessary to achieve dimensional recovery of such components. Thin and above all thick coatings can be deposited in a single pass (single layer) or in several passes (multi-pass), resulting in different thermal and stress effects in the component and the coating itself. The thermal input, the amount and type of residual stresses and the porosity affect various characteristics such as adhesion, crack propagation and mechanical properties of the coating. In this study, two sets (single- and multi-pass) of aluminium alloy (AA6061) coatings with different thicknesses (0.5 mm to 2 mm) were deposited onto AA6061 substrates and compared using metallographic and fractographic analyses, four-point bending testing, residual stress analysis and Vickers microhardness indentation. Finally, the coating adhesion and cohesion were measured using the standard ASTM-C633 adhesion test and tubular coating tensile test. This study demonstrates that the single-layer strategy results in greater adhesion and lower porosity, while multilayer coatings have higher elastic modulus. Independent of the strategy, the compressive residual stress decreases as a function of coating thickness.