Evaluation on cavitation characteristics of CoNiCrAlY/ZrO2–Y2O3 coating layer by atmospheric pressure plasma coating process

The atmospheric pressure plasma coating technology serves the function for enhancing the durability of products damaged by cavitation, corrosion, and erosion. However, it has many shortcomings compared to the vacuum plasma method such as porosity, low adhesive strength, and residual internal stress. Nevertheless, this technology has been frequently used recently because it has advantages of being helpful in simplifying processes and being applicable to diverse product shapes and sizes. In general, in the case of ceramic coating, dual structures are formed by adding MCrAlY metal bond coating between the base metal and ceramic top coating. In the present study, an aluminum-bronze alloy was applied with atmospheric pressure plasma coating of CoNiCrAlY/ZrO2–Y2O3 materials and the cavitation characteristics of the coated material were experimented in seawater. According to the results of the experiment, atmospheric pressure plasma coating showed much more excellent hardness and cavitation characteristics than the base metal.