A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Insights into cold-spray deposition of Nickel-Aluminum Bronze (NAB) on a soft substrate (Al alloy): emphasizing substrate influence on inter-splat bonding
Authors: Vinay, Gidla; Kant, Ravi; Ganvir, Ashish; Mäkilä, Ermei; Singh, Harpreet
Publisher: ELSEVIER
Publishing place: AMSTERDAM
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Applied Surface Science
Journal name in source: APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE
Journal acronym: APPL SURF SCI
Article number: 164170
Volume: 712
Number of pages: 20
ISSN: 0169-4332
eISSN: 1873-5584
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2025.164170
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2025.164170
Nickel-Aluminum Bronze (NAB) alloys are widely used in marine and aerospace industries due to their excellent corrosion resistance, cavitation resistance, and moderate wear properties. While cold spraying of NAB has been extensively studied for repair applications on NAB or similar substrates, their deposition on softer substrates for coating application remains unexplored. This study investigates the cold spray deposition of as-received and heat-treated NAB feedstock powder on a soft aluminum alloy substrate. Contrary to expectations of mechanical interlocking in the as-received powder, negligible deposition efficiency (DE) was observed due to erosion of the deposited layers. In contrast, under identical process parameters, nearly 100 % DE was achieved with heattreated powder, attributed to the reduced martensite content. Hardness and corrosion resistance were evaluated to assess the inter-splat bonding quality. A comparative study involving deposition on an NAB substrate further elucidated the influence of substrate on inter-splat bonding and overall coating properties. Finite element modeling (FEM) was employed to analyze the impact of substrate deformation on inter-splat boundary temperatures. Results indicate that the surface oxide layer and the energy expended in substrate deformation significantly affect inter-splat boundary temperatures, thereby influencing inter-splat dependent functional properties.
Funding information in the publication:
This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India through the project “Advanced Manufacturing Technology – Centre of Excellence (AMT-CoE) on Degradation Resistant Thermal Spray Coatings Engineered for Indigenous Industrial Applications (DST/TDT/AM/2022/143)” established at IIT Ropar. The cold spray system used for this study was established through MHRD-DST funded Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana (UAY, IITRPR_001). The authors would also like to acknowledge the XPS facility available at Central Research Facility in IIT Ropar. Prof. Ashish Ganvir acknowledges financial support from GREEN-BAT (Dnr 352517), co-funded by the Research Council of Finland and the European Union under the M-ERA.NET 2021 framework, as well as the SOLACE (Dnr 360540) Academy research fellowship, funded by the Research Council of Finland, for enabling characterization support for this work.
