Hiroyuki Akebono

The effect of coating thickness on fatigue properties of steel thermally sprayed with Ni-based self-fluxing alloy

The Thermal spraying is one of the most popular surface coating techniques. To achieve the most efficient use of this technique in practice, it is very important to clarify the fatigue properties of steel coated with a thermal spray coating. In this study, to clarify the effects of coating thickness on the fatigue properties of the steel substrate, three types of sprayed specimens with different coating thickness (0.2, 0.5 and 1.0mm) were prepared and fatigue tests were carried out. Coating thickness strongly affected the fatigue properties; the thinner the coating thickness, the higher the fatigue strength. Fatigue crack propagation behaviors were observed. Accordingly the fatigue cracks propagated through many defects on the coated surface. The sizes and number of the coating defects were determined by coating thickness; the thicker the coating thickness, the larger the defect and number. Therefore, the sprayed specimens with thinner coatings indicated higher fatigue strength. Furthermore, estimations of the fatigue strength were performed by using Murakamis equation. The fatigue strengths of thermal spray coated specimens were estimated by three parameters; (i) maximum size of coating defects estimated by statistics of extreme value, (ii) hardness of the matrix and (iii) volume fraction of coating defects.