Finite element modeling of coating formation and transient heat transfer in the electric arc spray process

The electric arc sprayed coating can be described as a superposition of Gaussian profile particles whose overlapping depends on the movement of spray gun. The heat transfer behavior during the deposition has a significant influence on the performance of the process. In this paper, simulation of the coating formation and analysis of the transient heat transfer were performed based on a newly developed finite element model, in which the dynamic stochastic multiple particles deposition characteristic of the process was taken into account. In order to investigate the effects of the kinematics and dimensional aspects on the coating/substrate temperature distribution, a traditional layer-by-layer finite element model without consideration of gun movement and particles Gaussian profile was also performed as a comparison. The stochastic deposition model provided a more objective result of the transient heat transfer of the coating/substrate than that of the layer-by-layer model, especially the severely inhomogeneous temperature distribution characteristics in different locations and spraying conditions. Finally, the molding results were experimentally compared with the temperature measurements on the coating surface and substrate back face using an infrared thermal imaging video camera, which shows that most of the modeling findings are consistent with that of the experiment.