A three-dimensional model of the wire-arc spray process and its experimental validation

A CFD study of the twin wire-arc spray process is presented in this paper. A three-dimensional model was used to compute the flow inside and outside the spray gun and gas-particles interactions were computed on the basis of one-way and two-way coupling methods, the latter allowing taking the loading effect into account. The considered particle size distributions were measured experimentally on particles collected at the spray distance, so that no atomizing model was required. In a second step, the model validation was performed on the basis of comparisons between predictions and particle velocity measurements.