Mechanical optimisation of Ni coatings produced by low-pressure cold spray

ABSTRACTNickel-based coatings are widely used as thermal barriers in several sectors thanks to their remarkable corrosion and wear resistance and outstanding stability at high temperatures. Recently, Ni coatings, produced with thermal spraying and vacuum techniques, have been investigated for solar power energy applications. In the present manuscript, low-pressure cold spray (LPCS) was used to deposit pure Nickel onto a steel substrate. The influence of gas temperature, nozzle stand-off distance, and advancing speed on morphological and mechanical properties were studied. The optimal deposition conditions were derived by ANOVA analysis. The hardness and the adhesion strength were approximately 160 HV and 26 MPa, respectively. The highest thickness obtained under the optimised deposition with a single pass was around 900 µm.KEYWORDS: Cold spraycoatingnickelparameter optimisationadhesion strengthhardnessroughnessdesign of experiments Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No, 754382 (https://doi.org/10.3030/754382); by ‘Comunidad de Madrid’ and European Structural Funds under ACES2030-CM project (S2018/EMT-4319); and by Spanish government AEI under grant number PID2020-115508RB-C22 (A3M).