Microstructure, Mechanical, and Wear Properties of NiCr-Re-Al2O3 Coatings Deposited by HVOF, Atmospheric Plasma Spraying, and Laser Cladding

K. Bochenek; W. Węglewski; A. Strojny-Nędza; K. Pietrzak; T. Chmielewski; M. Chmielewski; M. Basista

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology 31 (2022) 1609-1633

Metallic coatings are often applied on steel tubes in power generation boilers to improve their performance and extend the lifetime. Besides the high-temperature corrosion and erosion protection, the coatings should manifest good adhesion and cohesion strength, and relatively low residual stresses. In this study, three processing techniques: high velocity oxygen fuel spraying (HVOF), atmospheric plasma spraying (APS), and direct laser cladding were employed to obtain novel NiCr-Re and NiCr-Re-Al2O3 coatings intended for application in combustion boilers. The main objective was to assess the suitability of these three techniques to deposit NiCr-Re and NiCr-Re-Al2O3 composite coatings on a 16Mo3 steel substrate. For this purpose, a comparative analysis of the coatings behavior in selected tests was conducted. Of the three processing techniques, thermal spraying by HVOF turned out to be the optimum choice for the studied coatings. From among several variants of the HVOF-sprayed coatings, namely NiCr+1%Re, NiCr+2%Re, NiCr+1%Re+5%Al2O3, and NiCr+1%Re+10%Al2O3 (all vol.%), the NiCr+1%Re material exhibited the lowest extent of cracking in the disk bend test, the highest tensile strength (405 MPa) in the in-plane tension test, the highest Vickers hardness (379 HV2), the lowest specific wear rate (2.23·10-4 mm3/N m), and the lowest level of average residual tensile stress (120 MPa).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-022-01400-5