Mechanism study on the influence of combustion models and spray gun geometric parameters on high-velocity oxygen-fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying

Abstract

HVOF thermal spraying technology has unique advantages for spraying WC-12Co ceramic powder. The spraying process is complex, involving the gas-liquid-solid multiphase flow, chemistry, heat transfer and intelligent control. It is vital to quantitatively reveal the reaction mechanism of combustion components, which optimizes the thermal spraying process and improves the coating quality. A numerical model of HVOF thermal spraying was established, including the gas dynamics model, chemical thermodynamics model and discrete phase model for spraying particle. The difference between the eddy dissipation model (EDM) and EDC model in the traditional calculation was compared. The results show that the EDC model reveal the chemical reaction mechanism of the combustion in detail step by step, and quantitatively display the exothermic phenomenon during whole spraying. The exothermic reaction predicted by the EDC model continues into the air domain with the flame flow. The geometric structure of spray gun was analyzed based on the EDM model. The results show that the diameter of the combustion chamber is 30.2 mm, the diameter of the parallel nozzle is 10.5 mm, and the length from the particle inlet to the nozzle starting point is 13.3 mm, the flight temperature and velocity for particles are relatively high.