AMP - Advanced Manufacturing Park

Cold Spraying

Cold Spraying, or more precisely Cold Gas Dynamic Spraying (CGDS), is a high-rate material deposition process in which powder particles (typically 1 to 50 µm) are accelerated to velocities in the range 200 to 1000 m s-1 in a supersonic jet of compressed gas at a temperature much below the melting point of the feedstock powder (ambient temperature to 700°C). Upon impact with a target surface, the solid particles experience plastic deformation that disrupts thin surface films (such as metal oxides) and provides intimate conformal contact between the clean metal surfaces under high local pressure. This permits bonding to occur and layers of deposited material to be built up rapidly.

With CGDS, various materials can be sprayed without exposing them (or the substrate) to high thermal loads. In comparison to other thermal spraying processes (i.e. plasma spraying or flame spraying), CGDS allows coatings to be made with extremely low porosity and oxygen content. The application efficiency is very high and can reach up to 90%.

A number of materials have already been proven to be suitable for cold spraying. These include; metals, refractory metals, alloys and composites. With these materials in mind, a wide range of applications can be explored, with possible end uses in a number of industry sectors, such as aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, power generation, motorsport, medical, petrochemical and electronics.

High Performance Machining is performed at the TWI.