Study of the Effect of Thickness on the Residual Stress Profile of a Cold Spray Coating by Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The understanding of residual stress is of critical importance in the cold spray and thermal spray processes. It has a direct effect on the integrity of the coating related to the adhesion strength, fatigue life, and can lead to undesired effects such as the delamination of the coating. In cold spray, several investigations have evaluated the impact of the residual stress on the coatings, and it is generally accepted that cold spray coatings follow a similar profile to those obtained in the shot peening process. Although the measurement of residual stresses gives fundamental insight into the process, the estimation of such stresses considering the deposition of each layer by numerical methods has not been extensively studied. This work proposes a method for analyzing the evolution of residual stress on a cold spray coating, both on the coating and the substrate, as a function of the deposited layers, using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The evolution of the residual stress profile with the coating thickness was obtained along the transverse direction. The results were compared to experimental and numerical data from previous studies. The influence of the deposition of each layer on the residual stress profile has been discussed.