Cold spraying of Cu-Al-Bronze for cavitation protection in marine environments

High strength metal coatings are promising for reducing the cavitation damage of ship rudders. Cold spraying offers the opportunity to produce coatings that have similar properties as respective bulk material. In this study, conditions for cold spraying CuAl10Fe5Ni5 bronze are evaluated for the use at ship rudder applications. The spray parameter sets were varied with respect to nozzle type, process gas pressure and temperature. Single particle impact morphologies were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and categorized into different classes to obtain information on the deformation behavior. Within the selected parameter regime, coatings were processed with deposition efficiencies of up to 70%. The coating microstructures were analyzed by optical microscopy to gain information on spraying conditions for minimum porosity. For the higher parameter sets, porosities of less than 2% were obtained. Coating performance was investigated by cavitation test procedures. These first results show that cold sprayed bronze coatings still faces challenges with respect to powder properties. With further optimization, respective coatings could have a high potential for ensuring a good performance in rudder protection.