Cavitation Erosion for WC Cermet Coating Prepared by HVOF

Abstract

Abstract Cavitation erosion is one of the serious problems that affect lifetime and performance on hydraulic machineries and its components. Surface modification techniques is required to apply to hydraulic components, such as water turbine and radial flow pump, in general. Here, the techniques, which can easily be applied to large area, is must be required for actual applications in the fields. Thus, thermal sprayed WC cermet coatings with high abrasion resistance under wet conditions are one of the promising solutions as the protective coatings against cavitation erosion. In this study, WC/Cr3C2/Ni and WC/Co/Cr coatings prepared using a high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) spraying have been evaluated by a magneto-striction vibratory apparatus to investigate the cavitation erosion resistance. The microstructures of the sprayed coatings after the cavitation erosion test have been analyzed by SEM to clarify the erosion mechanism. It has been found that the cavitation erosion resistance of the WC cermet coatings is significantly affected by primary particle size of WC, powder compositions and spray conditions. In the WC/10wt%Co/4wt%Cr, the coating with WC average particle size of 6.3 µm sprayed by optimized spray conditions achieved the highest cavitation erosion resistance than the other WC coatings as well as base materials of stainless steel used in the actual components.