Influence of process variables on the quality of detonation gun sprayed alumina coatings

Detonation gun (D-gun) spraying is one of the most promising thermal spray variants for depositing high quality wear resistant coatings. Of all the ceramic materials that can be D-gun sprayed, alumina (Al2O3) is the most widely established and these coatings have already gained industrial acceptance for diverse applications. The present study deals with a statistical design of experimental study of the D-gun spraying of Al2O3 powder. Coating experiments were conducted, using a Taguchi-full factorial (L16) design parametric study, to optimize the D-gun spray process parameters. Four selected important spraying parameters were considered in their upper and lower levels of the predefined range according to the test matrix, in order to display the range of processing conditions and their effect on the coating quality. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, image analysis and hardness testing was used for characterization. Coating qualities are discussed with respect to surface roughness, hardness, porosity and microstructure. The attributes of the coatings are correlated with the changes in operating parameters and their relative importance and contribution ratios to overall variance are calculated.