Metal Spray Techniques

• Metal Spray Supplies NZ Ltd - New Zealand's Leading Supplier of all Metal Spray Products
  
  
  • In essence, Metal Spraying involves the melting of a raw material in wire or powder form, before propelling the atomised material towards the workpiece at high velocity to create a coating.
    
    
  • Arc Spray - In the Arcspray process, the raw material in the form of a pair of metallic wires is melted by means of an electric arc. The molten material is atomised by compressed air and propelled towards the workpiece.
    
    
  • Flame Spray - In the Flamespray process, the raw material in the form of a single wire, cord or powder, is melted in an oxygen-fuel gas flame. This molten material is atomised by a cone of compressed air and propelled towards the workpiece.
    
    
  • Plasma Spray - When Plasmaspraying, the plasma is created by an electric arc burning within the nozzle of a plasma gun. The arc gas is formed into a plasma jet as it emerges from the gun nozzle. Powder particles are injected into this jet where they melt and then strike the surface at high velocity to produce a strongly adherent coating. Almost any material can be sprayed including metals, ceramics and plastics. The workpiece remains cool because the plasma is localised at the gun.
    
    
  • HVOF - Liquid fuel and oxygen are fed via a pre-mixing system and at high pressure into a combustion chamber where they burn to produce a hot, high pressure gas stream. This is expanded through a laval type nozzle increasing the gas velocity to around 1,500 m/sec and the pressure to slightly above atmospheric. At this stage the powder can easily be injected into the gas stream.
    
    
  • Metal Spray Suppliers - Safety Equipment
    
    
• International Metalizing Corporation
  
  
  • Metalizing Current State of the Art - Metalizing" is a term applied to pure metal sprayed coats (not paint) as opposed to other methods of applying metallic coatings such as hot dip galvanizing or electroplating. Metalizing equipment is mobile, appropriate for many complex shapes and not limited by size. Metalizing may be used alone or in combination with other coating systems, and drastically increases the adhesion of topcoats when they are applied over metalized coatings. A wide variety of materials can be safely and effectively metalized including: metal, concrete, glass, plastic, fiberglass, wood, paper, and cloth.
    
    
  • Metal Spraying of Zinc and Aluminum in the United Kingdom -A wide range of industries in the United Kingdom have used zinc and aluminum spraying for the corrosion protection of either mass produced articles or individual structures. Those reported include many which can still be seen as case histories demonstrating the long life possible. Zinc spraying of plastics, impregnated asbestos, and non-metallic substrates (such as paper in electrical capacitors) is widely used to provide electrical conductivity or electromagnetic screening properties of reflective surfaces. Meanwhile, zinc or tin-zinc spraying is used in the production of moulds and mould tools for the plastics industry.
    
    
• Holtgren Coatings - We apply each of the three major types of spray, including the recently- developed high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) process.The three types are; Spray-and-Fuse, Plasma Spray, and HVOF:
  
  
  • Nickel-base spray-and-fuse coatings, although developed over fifty years ago, are still specified by many of our customers because they are reliable, inexpensive, and they perform very well in service. These coatings are a special alloy of nickel, chromium, silicon, boron, and carbon. Their major attribute, in addition to their excellent resistance to galling and abrasive wear, is that their melting point is only about two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This means that they can be sprayed onto a steel component (which melts at about twenty seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit) , and then subsequently fused, or melted, without melting the base metal.
    
    
  • The plasma spray process was developed in the 1950's as an off-shoot of the rocket industry. The process was developed to enable aerospace engineers to spray-form non-metallic nose cones. The plasma spray gun is basically a welding torch into which spray powder is introduced. The expansion of the inert gases passing through the gun accelerates the spray powder toward the target. The arc temperature of the plasma torch approaches 30,000 degrees Kelvin, which is sufficient to soften even the most high-melting materials. This process is used to apply high-melting materials such as chromium oxide, aluminum oxide, and titanium oxide.
    
    
• Corrosion.Com : Protective Paints, Coatings, Linings & Corrosion Information Server
  
  
  • Thermal Spray Metal Coatings - Mr. B. Fitzsimons B.Sc.
    
    
    • Metal Spraying Process
    • Selection of Metals
    • Thermally Sprayed Aluminium
    • Safety and Environmental Issues related to Thermal Spraying
      
      
• Los Alamos National Laboratory: Electrotechnologies for Your Home - The art of metal-forming; technology brings life to sculptures
  
  
  • Scientists at Los Alamos National Laborator, Los Alamos, N.M. have adapted a metal forming technology with origins in the Cold War for a new application in the art world.
    
    
  • Big, metal yard sculptures comprise a growing trend among sculptors and their enthusiasts. But corrosion-free metals such as stainless steel are difficult for sculptors to cast or machine. Electroplating the corrosion-free metal over the sculpture produces a coating too thin for sculptors to polish or shape. So sculptors are often stuck using inferior metals throughout the piece. "Not anymore," says Hollis. "The old way involved making a mold and pouring molten bronze into the mold. What we're able to do is apply different metals on the outside of the piece."
    
    
  • Related Article - Los Alamos researchers, Kendall Hollis and Richard Castro, are adapting industrial technology for spraying molten metals to [sculpture]. Hollis and Castro earlier this year contacted sculptor Tom Bollinger, who was managing a local art foundry and is now based in Arizona. The three have formed a business called Scintilla Artworks to commercialize the sculpture spraying technique and develop metal spray technology specific for the needs of the art community.
    
    
• Richard J. Prazen - Image of a Fur Trader, Bas Relief - Welded Steel, Natural Metal Color, and Metal Spray
  
  
• Weisensee - spray atomizes materials
  
  
  • Spray - atomized materials and Metal Matrix Composites Al - based The manufacturing company, PEAK in Germany, concentrates on the material refinement of aluminium based spray - atomized materials suitable for forging processes. The optimization of characteristics are mainly aimed at the introduction of alloy elements (particle strengthening), the fabrication of homogeneous structure or the intensification of the alloy contents. In addition materials are produced that were formerly either impossible or difficult to cast.
    
    
• Southern Medical Journal - Hazards Associated With Metalworking by Artists, STEVEN J. WEISS, MD, and STEVEN H. LESSER, MD, New Orleans, La
  • ABSTRACT: Metalworking is the constructive sculptural application of various technologic processes for producing art from ferrous and nonferrous metals. Self-employed artists and their workplaces are not protected by governmental agencies. We describe the techniques involved in metalworking processes and discuss the physical trauma and medical syndromes associated with each process, as well as safety, prevention, and treatment aspects of the basic syndromes.
    
    
• Mettech - Northwest Mettech Corp. is a Canadian based high technology company specializing in the field of axial injection plasma spray.
  
  
• MIT DMSE Current Research Activities METALS - Three-Dimensional Printing of Parts for Metal Tooling - Professor Samuel M. Allen, Professor Michael J. Cima
  
  
  • Three-dimensional printing is a process by which bulk parts can be built up by repeatedly applying binder to a thin layer of powder using an ink-jet printing technology. The process has been well developed for making parts from ceramic materials, using traditional combinations of ceramic powders and binders. We are doing research to apply this technology to the production of metal alloy parts of high hardness and toughness, for applications where hardenable die steels are conventionally used. We are developing systems in which hardenable steel powders are printed to produce green porous green bodies.
    
    
• New Steel - Thin-slab Casting, Acme rolls 0.030-inch hot band (mini-mills, "micro-mills?")
  
  
• NAM-Manufacturing Improvement Center Facilities
  
  
  • Manufacturing Technology Facility (MTF) - The MTF focuses on advanced materials engineering and processing, integrated product and process design, and prototype production. Major emphasis is placed on net-shape forming, solid freeform fabrication, automated machining, and joining processes.
    
    

Shapemaking

Powder Parts Production Superplastic Forming Semi-Solid Metalworking Rolling, Forging, Extrusion Wiredrawing Precision Machining Casting Plastic Injection Molding Metal and Ceramic Injection Molding Sheetmetal Forming Spray Casting




• National Center for Defense Excellence - N.049 Demonstration and Validation of Spray Casting - Dr. Eric Brooman
  
  
  • The goal of this program is to provide an environmentally and economically acceptable coating process to replace currently used hard chromium electroplating processes. The spray casting process utilizes pressure-controlled atomization to apply liquid metal droplets that form a coating on the desired substrate.
    
    
  • Technology Justification
    
    
    • Provides homogenous coatings of controlled composition
    • Eliminates health hazards (enclosed operation, near-zero emissions)
    • Reduces hazardous waste generation (solid overspray material collected and recycled)
    • Decreases overall maintenance and material costs.
      
      
• KKAI ROD Your experts in Physical Metallurgy and Material Selection and the second largest Engineering Analysis and Consulting Firm in the U.S. Expertise in materials technology, physical metallurgy and materials science; casting, strain hardening.
  
  
  • Solidification/Casting
    
    
    • Dendritic growth
    • Dendritic segregation
    • Stir/RheoCasting
    • Spray Forming
    • Porosity.