Flow characteristic of in-flight particles in supersonic plasma spraying process

Abstract

In this paper, a computational model based on supersonic plasma spraying (SAPS) is developed to describe the plasma jet coupled with the injection of carrier gas and particles for SAPS. Based on a high-efficiency supersonic spraying gun, the 3D computational model of spraying gun was built to study the features of plasma jet and its interactions with the sprayed particles. Further the velocity and temperature of in-flight particles were measured by Spray Watch 2i, the shape of in-flight particles was observed by scanning electron microscope. Numerical results were compared with the experimental measurements and a good agreement has been achieved. The flight process of particles in plasma jet consists of three stages: accelerated stage, constant speed stage and decelerated stage. Numerical and experimental indicates that the H2 volume fraction in mixture gas of Ar + H2 should keep in the range of 23–26 %, and the distance of 100 mm is the optimal spraying distance in Supersonic atmosphere plasma spraying. Particles were melted and broken into small child particles by plasma jet and the diameters of most child particles were less than 30 μm. In general, increasing the particles impacting velocity and surface temperature can decrease the coating porosity.