Study of mechanical properties and high temperature oxidation behavior of a novel cold-spray Ni-20Cr coating on boiler steels

In the current investigation, high temperature oxidation behavior of a novel cold-spray Ni-20Cr nanostructured coating was studied. The nanocrystalline Ni-20Cr powder was synthesized by the investigators using ball milling, which was deposited on T22 and SA 516 steels by cold spraying. The crystallite size based upon Scherrer's formula for the developed coatings was found to be in nano-range for both the substrates. The accelerated oxidation testing was performed in a laboratory tube furnace at a temperature 900 °C under thermal cyclic conditions. Each cycle comprised heating for one hour at 900 °C followed by cooling for 20 min in ambient air. The kinetics of oxidation was established using weight change measurements for the bare and the coated steels. The oxidation products were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and X-ray mapping techniques. It was found from the results that the coating was successful in reducing the weight gain of SA213-T22 and SA 516-Grade 70 steel by 71% and 94%, respectively. This may be attributed to relatively denser structure, lower porosity and lower oxide content of the coating. Moreover, the developed nano-structured Ni-20Cr powder coating was found to perform better than its counterpart micron-sized Ni-20Cr powder coating, in terms of offering higher oxidation resistance and hardness.