Microstructure characteristics and tribological behaviour of plasma sprayed ceramic coatings

Sammanfattning: Surface engineering is increasingly becoming inevitable for meeting the high-performance requirements constantly expected from modern engineering components. Higher demands for combined functionalities, which a base material alone cannot provide, motivate intensive academic studies on various types of coatings, with the ultimate objective of their practical utilisation in industries. Especially the study of wear has become of critical importance for the industry development of new components, as wear-related mechanisms frequently compromise the durability and reliability of machines. Consequently, the need for effective wear control has become progressively vital in pursuing advanced and dependable technology for the future. Different coating technologies are being developed to forestall the wear of engineering components. More specifically, the thermal spraying technique of atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) has been proven particularly efficient in implementing thick film coating for aeronautic, automotive and medical applications. However, advanced coatings are required for improved performance and extended durability in harsh operating environments. These developments have stimulated research on developing novel coating through optimised deposition parameters and modified feedstock characteristics to achieve a more redefined microstructure. The primary scope of the research associated with this thesis is to target the study and research of plasma-sprayed ceramic coatings designed to provide exceptional wear resistance to targeted components as well as improved mechanical properties. The presented work involves an investigation of varying feedstock powder particle-size distributions, different coating chemistries and comparing the suspension plasma injection technology to its more traditional powdered feedstock variant. The result obtained suggested that the influence of powder-size particles affects the resultant microstructure with a finer composition, denoted by a lower porosity of 1.3% compared to the coarser powder fed 1.9% (both presenting a standard deviation of 0.2%). However, it could be seen that both the presence of optimised spraying parameters and finer feedstock particles were significant in obtaining improved mechanical properties. Furthermore, an examination of the powder-fed coating revealed slightly improved hardness properties to the newly developed suspension-sprayed samples. However, the powder-fed coatings distinctly exhibited superior resistance to sliding wear with an average specific wear of 5.7 (± 0.9 standard deviation) compared to the 12.8 (± 1 standard deviation) × 10-6 mm3∙N-1∙m-1of suspension-based coatings. In conclusion, it was observed that the chemical composition of the alumina-chromia composite coating demonstrated exceptional hardness properties among the analysed samples (1603 Vicker Hardness 0.2) and superior sliding wear resistance (0.59 × 10-6mm3∙N-1∙m-1).