| Abstract | In the past 10 years, the cold spray process has gained in maturity leading to a significant increase in the patents released on system innovation and process implementation in number of industrial sectors. Since the initial intellectual property patent review published by Irissou et al. in 2008 and covering the early development of cold spray from unsuccessful attempts in 1915 to the modern development in Russia and USA, over 300 new patents were awarded. The motivation for this chapter was to provide an overview of the recent, key developments in the expanding field of the cold spray technology. The patent search was performed using the software ORBIT from Questel (Paris, France), and the definitions of the cold spray process included: cold gas dynamic spray (CGDS), kinetic spray (KS), supersonic particle deposition (SPD), dynamic metallization (DYMET) or kinetic metallization (KM). Only the US patents, which were found to be excusive to the cold spray process, were reviewed.
Three main topics covered by the patent review consist of: (1) apparatus and methods, (2) feedstock and (3) applications. The apparatus and method section includes a review of patents aimed towards the improvement of the cold spray systems and system control. The feedstock section includes feedstock material design for improved sprayability and targeted chemical, mechanical and microstructural material properties. The cold spray applications section covers the field of protective coatings, welding, brazing and component repair as well as additive and near-net-shape manufacturing, found to be of great interest to the automotive and aerospace industries. Other patents reviewed consist of cold spray process applications in the field of biomedical and electronic devices. |
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