Mechanical and Microstructural Behavior of Cold-Sprayed Titanium- and Nickel-Based Coatings

Cold spraying is a coating technology that can deposit materials with unique properties. The coating forms through intensive plastic deformation of particles impacting on a substrate at temperature well below the melting point of the sprayed material. Recently, various studies have been published regarding the microstructural and mechanical evolution of metal-matrix composite coatings produced by cold spraying. Herein, we describe the principal results of the available literature in the field of cold-sprayed composites. It is shown that more research is required to solve various questions in this field, for example, the different deformation modes of the material exhibited for various processing conditions, the reinforcing percentage of different material combinations, and the mechanical properties resulting from these complex systems. In the present study, this issue is approached and described for cold-sprayed Ni- and Ti-based composites. Materials were produced with varying ceramic phase (BN and TiAl3) fraction. The variation of the grain size, adhesion strength, porosity, and hardness of the deposits as a function of the ceramic phase fraction and processing parameters (impacting particle speed) is described. The interaction mechanisms between the cold-sprayed particles and the metal matrix during the coating process are presented and described. The results demonstrate a beneficial effect on grain size and porosity with increasing reinforcing phase percentage, as well as narrow processing parameter ranges to achieve the optimal properties with respect to the pure parent materials.