Adhesion, hardness and structure of thermal sprayed Al/SiC composite coat on graphite

Combustion powder spraying has been used in the coating of graphite by a layer of Al and SiC composite utilizing the Box–Wilson design that fixes the optimum spraying parameters of Al/SiC wt.% composition, substrate temperature and spraying distance. Graphite substrate surface was conditioned by subjecting to sand blast roughing and nitrogen flushed furnace treating. Under the spraying conditions considered, a single spraying pass attains a coating layer 65 ± 15 µm of average thickness. Two optimum spraying conditions that concern adhesion of coating to graphite and its hardness are obtained. Upon spraying for adhesion purpose, the coat/graphite adhesion strength is found to depend mainly on graphite surface conditioning, but for hardness purpose, it is found to depend mainly on SiC wt.% composition.Microstructure of transversal coating section indicates that adhesion efficiency is due to physical interlocking of molten sprayed materials on the roughened and treated graphite surface. Phases identified from fractured coatings by XRD analysis show individual phase of Al, SiC and graphite in addition to small amount of new extra phases that combine the three constituents such as Al4C3 and Al4Si2C5. These phases play a role with the good physical interlocking in achieving adhesion strength that exceeds that of graphite.