hi everybody

My name is Semih, i am a new member and thanks for the giving access.

I am from turkey and i am a student in Sakarya University. My department is Metallurgical and Material Engieering. I am currently 3. class. Surface Engineering is realy a new field for me.

Our department has a project about thermal spray coating. We will build a thermal spray laboratary.
I have taken an engineering design assignment from my teacher who interest in surface engineering. So that my assignment is about location of equipments in a simple thermal spray laboratary and which equipments should be needeed. It's just a simple bird view plan.

Could you give me please information about this issue? or any information source that i can get knowledge about thermal spray laboratary?

Thank you and success at your surface engineering works.


(sorry for grammar mistakes)

Hi Semih

to the Surface Engineering Forum.

First, you need to establish a clear idea of the purpose for you?re proposed thermal spray facility. My idea of a thermal spray laboratory will probably be very different to yours or anybody else.

At least a good basic knowledge of thermal spray processes and associated processes will be important. You would not trust someone to design a layout for a kitchen, if his or her only experience with cooking was boiling an egg! Unless of course your kitchen will only be used for boiling eggs

You need to decide on which thermal spray process or processes to base your facility around (wire flame spray, powder flame spray, arc spray, plasma spray, HVOF, cold spray etc..). Fairly straightforward choice if your purpose is solely for research and development on HVOF coatings. Not so simple if you want to research say abradable coatings where more than one process may need to be considered.

A basic generic thermal spray layout would consist of an area for substrate preparation (machining, cleaning, grit blasting, masking etc.). A separate area, ideally acoustically enclosed room or booth, with good air extraction and filtering for housing the spraying process (wire flame spray example). The reasons behind this should become obvious with more study. Also consider mechanical handling equipment, post spraying processes (sealing, fusing, machining, inspection, testing, etc.).

I would suggest you contact some of the thermal spray equipment suppliers for details on specific equipment details, when you have a clear picture of what you want to achieve.

Quote:A note for all students, I sure many of the forum members will be pleased to give some of their time and help students with their studies. Please remember though, we are not here to do your homework, projects or PhD?s for you.

Thank you Gordon.

Your information have lighted my way. At least it has given me a aim.

I hope, i didn't make you think that i am a lazy student .

Thank you again. .

Hi Semih

did not mean to imply you were lazy. I think your project would be challenging even for a person with good thermal spray knowledge. I think you probably know the type of student my comment was aimed at though.

Thanks for your comments and I wish you success in your project.

i wish u all the best semih

Semih,

A few things to high light in the lab you are setting up. Basic equipment as below shd be available in the lab: (not sure the actual name or brand)

1. Grindling/Polishing Machine - to grind / polish the mounted specimen
2. Epoxy Mounting Machine - Machine that can perform cold and hot mounting using epoxy
3. Oven/Baking machine - To cure the specimen, cold mountings or tensile slugs specimens.
4. Tensile Testing Equipment - A universal tensile pull-off machine that perform tensile strength of a coating specimen.These will include the gravity bonding fixture to cure the slug/.specimens.
5. Marcro hardness Testing equipment- Indentation performed on the specimen (flat surface) to get Rockwell hardness.
6. Micro hardness Testing Equipment - Indentation performed on the mounted specimen to test vickers hardness.
7. Surface Profilemeter - A equipment that test on the surface funishing on roughnness reading e;g: RA, Rz, Rmax...
8. A good microscope - critical Lab test equipment to evaluate the coating microstructure, metallorgraphy with 100X, 200X, 250X, 500X, 1000X and above. Link to a PC to capture picture and perform analytical measures.
9. A systematic Recording system - these will include a proper management of the recording of a test sample, lab release results, proper storage system of all evaluated specimens, proper paper documentation on testing results, submission for a teest request,..etc (work with the QAdepartment to work out a proper documentation and management procedures and SOP or something.)
10. All the consumables - Epoxy, curing glue, adhesion firms, jig and fixtures needed to perform the testing.
11. Maintenance and Calibration of Machines/equipment - A proper maintenance plan and Calibration system shd be planned for an annual calibration performed on the testing equipments to ensure reliability.
12. Hoffman Scratch-Harness Tester
13. Lap shear capability tester
14. Specified Specimen Material(substrate) for diff coating.
15. Standard Metallorgrapic photostandard - This is to develop a standard for your coating application / quality that you need to achieve be it micro-structural characteristics, tensile reading, hardness reading...to decide the acceptability or rejectability of a coating specimen.

Well, these are some sharing which I can share in draft and rough, you need to work on the details. There are far more things that need to be incorporated to setting up a lab for thermal spraying. As what Gordon said, set your aim, application and standard, and ofcourse the budget and costing for the set-up.

Wish you all the best and a sucessful project.

Regards,
Alex

Hi Semih

I assumed you meant a thermal spray process laboratory, was I wrong? Anyway, Alex (above post) has kindly covered the thermal spray coating evaluation laboratory

Gordon/ Semih,

I guess I have misinterpreted his project on coating process lab and coating evaluation lab..haha. So I look forward to the update on the project progress.

regards,
alex

Hi,
You can also refer to my book on 'Advanced Thermally Assisted Surface Engineering Processes', Kluwer Academic Publishers, MA,USA( now taken over by Springer,NY, USA),2004, where in addition to covering all the thermal processes, such as thermal spray,vapor phase deposition, diffusion, welding etc,a complete chapter is devoted to 'Quality Checks on Engineered Surfaces' including performance tests and available data on qualities of surfaces engineered by different processes.
In addition to basic equipments listed by Alex, you need to have equipments depending on your projects.During my recent tenure at the Surface Engineering Center of Simon Bolivar University at Caracas, Venezuella,( they have an excellent thermal sprating Lab), I was glad to see them going beyond micro (SEM-TEM) to nano(AFM).
ram chattopadhyay

Gordon, karunanidhi, Alexangel1226, drramc??thank you all. .

I have found something on internet. Take a look please;

http://webpages.dcu.ie/~stokesjt/Thermal...apter8.pdf

I have to concentrate on theory of a thermal sprey lab.

electric voltage, noise isolation, air isolation etc.

So that i think, it must be like a feasibility report for build a lab..

Thank you. .

Hi Semih

Going back to my first post

Quote:First, you need to establish a clear idea of the purpose for you?re proposed thermal spray facility

Have you established what the aim or purpose of your laboratory is going to be?

Have you decided on what equipment will be needed to fulfil the above purpose and the required support facilities (electricity, water, compressed air, fuel, gas etc...?

Have you considered the health and safety and environmental consequences of the above?

I think you really need to put most of your effort into answering the above before you even think about drawing up plans or writing a feasibility report.

The link you provided seems generally good for a simple HVOF set-up, Though I would question the extraction equipment, as this seems what would typically be used for a normal flame spray process and not necessary adequate for HVOF. Are we to read here that you propose a HVOF process laboratory and do not intend use of other process like plasma, flame spray, arc etc.?