A study on the heat flow in the arc spraying process

As a result of the arc spraying process residual stresses can occur in the deposited layer and base metal, and these stresses greatly influence the mechanical properties of the coated parts. There is, however, little information on the problem from experimental studies. For the analytical determination of the residual stress distribution, the temperature distribution must first be solved exactly. However, the research results on the heat flow in arc spraying are not sufficient to determine analytically the structural change and residual stress distribution in the sprayed parts. In this study, the heat flow problem in arc spraying was modelled and solved by a numerical method and a series of experiments was carried out to measure the temperature change. The comparison of the numerical and experimental results showed good agreement. The proposed heat flow model is, therefore, considered to be appropriate to determine the temperature history of the arc-sprayed parts, and can be applied to analysing the problem of residual stresses.