Quality of thermally sprayed coating guaranteed

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 19, 2001

Poeton Industries has recently hosted the first UK testing of a new monitoring system designed to guarantee the quality of thermally sprayed coating as part of the INDOCOT project

Poeton Industries Limited, a world leader in surface coating technology, has recently hosted the first UK testing of a new monitoring system designed to guarantee the quality of thermally sprayed coating.

It is being developed as part of the INDOCOT project (Industrial Optical Diagnostic for On-Line Control in Thermal Spraying).

Poeton is the only British company involved in the three-year INDOCOT research project, which has involved seven European partners and is funded under the European Union's BRITE support scheme.

Thermal spraying, which is used to apply coatings to components such as jet engine turbine blades, is used extensively where quality - and the guarantee of quality - are vital.

Explaining the significance of INDOCOT for the surface coatings industry, Poeton Research and Development director Keith Stevens says: "The project has resulted in the development of a highly innovative monitoring technique for thermal spraying applications.

It looks at the flame, measures the temperature and velocity of sprayed particles and the substrate temperature, and uses the data to optimise the spray parameters and, therefore, the coating quality.

"Feedback from it provides a unique opportunity to relate the characteristics of the powder-in-flight to the properties of the coating in order to improve quality and reduce costs." He adds that other important benefits of the monitoring system for thermal spraying applications include fewer rejects; lower consumption of materials, energy and water; and a safer, more operator-friendly working environment.

The INDOCOT partners expect the new technology to be available for a wide range of spray techniques and powder compositions.

The trials held at Poeton 's Gloucester factory were designed to test the new equipment under plasma, high-energy plasma, wire and flame spraying conditions.

The R and D Partners, a joint team from Perpignan University and the National Engineering School in St.

Etienne have been responsible for developing and transferring the technology from research laboratories.

The team is headed up by Professor Igor Smurov, who commented: "Close co-operation with partners such as Poeton is absolutely necessary in order to understand existing industrial problems and examine the diagnostic equipment prototype under real commercial conditions.

We are looking forward to continuing the established collaboration with Poeton in the near future on another European R and D Project named 'TRIBO', which is aimed at developing advanced wear resistant coatings".

The other partners attending the Poeton trials were Top Coat (Italy), Projection Plasma Systeme (France), Permanova (Sweden), Advanced Coating (Belgium) and Iontech (Spain).