Experimental Studies into the Analysis Required for the Durability Assessment of 7075 and 6061 Cold Spray Repairs to Military Aircraft

This paper presents an experimental study into the analysis required for the durability assessment of 7075 and 6061 cold spray repairs to military aircraft. To this end, it is first shown that provided the bulk stress in a 7075 cold spray coating can be kept beneath approximately 150 MPa, then the coating should not crack. A range of examples are presented in which the interface between the coating and the substrate only fails subsequent to crack growth in the substrate. We also show that failure of cold spray repaired/coated panels can also be due to the nucleation and growth of cracks in the substructure immediately adjacent to the coated/repaired region. As such, when performing a durability analysis for a cold spray repair, the growth of such small naturally occurring cracks, both at the interface and immediately adjacent to the ends of the coating, need to be accounted for.