Manufacturing and Properties of High-Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF)-Sprayed FeVCrC Coatings

This paper studies the microstructure, sliding wear behavior and corrosion resistance of high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF)-sprayed FeVCrC-based coatings. Various process parameters were tested to evaluate their effects on the coating properties, which were also compared to those of HVOF-sprayed NiCrBSi and Stellite-6 coatings. The Fe alloy coatings are composed of flattened splats, originating from molten droplets and consisting of a super-saturated solid solution, together with rounded particles, coming from partially unmolten material and containing V- and Fe-based carbide precipitates. All process parameters, apart from “extreme” settings with excess comburent in the flame, produce dense coatings, indicating that the feedstock powder is quite easily processable by HVOF. These coatings, with a microhardness of 650-750 HV0.3, exhibit wear rates of ≈2 × 10−6 mm3/(Nm) in ball-on-disk tests against sintered Al2O3 spheres. They perform far better than the reference coatings, and better than other Fe- and Ni-based alloy coatings tested in previous research. On the other hand, the corrosion resistance of the coating material (tested by electrochemical polarization in 0.1 M HCl solution) is quite low. Even in the absence of interconnected porosity, this results in extensive, selective damage to the Fe-based matrix. This coating material is therefore unadvisable for severely corrosive environments.