Electro-spark deposited coatings for protection of materials
- Battelle Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
Electro-Spark Deposition (ESD) is a micro-welding process that uses short duration, high-current electrical pulses to deposit or alloy a consumable electrode material onto a metallic substrate. The coating is fused (metallurgically bonded) to the substrate with such a low total heat input that the bulk substrate material remains at or near ambient temperature. Rapid solidification of the deposit typically results in an extremely fine-grained deposit that may be amorphous for some materials. Nearly any electrically conductive metal, alloy or cermet can be applied to metallic substrates. The ESD process allows multi-layer coatings to be built-up using different materials to create graded structures or surface compositions that would be difficult to achieve by other means. A series of iron-aluminide coatings based on Fe{sub 3}Al and FeAl in combination with refractory metal diffusion-barrier coatings and supplementary additions of other elements are in corrosion testing at ANL. The most recent FeAl coatings are showing a factor of three better corrosion performance than the best previous coatings. Technology transfer activities are a significant portion of the ESD program effort. Notable successes now include the start-up of a new business to commercialize the ESD technology, major new applications in gas turbine engines and steam turbine blade coatings, and in military, medical, metal-working, and recreational equipment applications.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 416503
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/FMP-95/1; CONF-9505204-; ON: DE96001412; TRN: 96:006558-0028
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 9. annual conference on fossil energy materials, Oak Ridge, TN (United States), 16-18 May 1995; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the ninth annual conference on fossil energy materials; Cole, N.C.; Judkins, R.R. [comps.]; PB: 522 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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