3 – Comparing cold spray with thermal spray coating technologies

Publisher Summary Cold spray has many similarities to traditional thermal spray processes. However, there are also important fundamental differences that make the cold spray process and cold-sprayed materials highly unique. In some applications, the unique features of cold spray offer significant advantages, over-coming inherent limitations of traditional thermal spray processes. In other applications, more traditional processes might offer superior capability and performance. To identify the best potential applications for cold spray, it is important to understand the similarities and differences of cold spray as compared with traditional thermal spray alternatives. This chapter provides a high-level overview of spray process technologies and discusses important similarities and differences between cold spray and traditional thermal spray. Cold spray is still an emerging, but very promising, technology. In some applications, it offers a way to overcome important limitations of traditional thermal spray technologies, such as high levels of porosity and oxide in the sprayed material. However, it is also more limited in the range of materials and substrates that are process compatible, and there are currently very limited application and property data for cold-sprayed materials as compared to traditional thermal spray processes. For this and other reasons, cold spray would not replace the traditional thermal spray processes.