Deposition features of cold sprayed copper particles on preheated substrate

•Enhanced thermal softening effect facilitates the formation of viscous-like metal jet.•Viscous-like metal jet is more likely to form at the interface of the preheated substrate.•Particles are more likely to deposit on the preheated substrate surface.

In this study, finite element analysis combined with experimental observation was conducted on copper particles depositing on preheated copper substrates to clarify the deposition mechanism of cold sprayed particles on the thermally softened substrate. The numerically predicted results indicate that with increasing the substrate preheating temperature, substrate deforms more and more intensively and the metal jet formed at the rim of the interface becomes increasingly prominent due to the enhanced thermal softening effect. Additionally, the substrate maximum local temperature increases gradually with the substrate preheating temperature, which means the viscous-like metal jet is more likely to form at the interface of the high temperature substrate. For the experiment, some crumple-like features near the particle–substrate interfacial region can be clearly observed at the surface of the preheated substrate. The crumple can be recognized as a sign of plastic flow, which further indicates that thermal softening is easy to occur for high temperature substrate. Besides, the experimental results also suggest that particles are more likely to deposit on the preheated substrate surface. The amount of the successfully deposited particles, including both large and small-scale particles, increases with the substrate preheating temperature.