| Abstract | The Cantor alloy's excellent ductility and toughness have made it a popular thermal spray feedstock material, however, its wear resistance is limited. In this work, in an effort to produce cold spray Cantor coatings with further improved tribological performance, WC particles of different morphologies (agglomerated and cast) were added to a gas atomized spherical Cantor alloy powder feedstock to deposit metal matrix composite (MMC) coatings via high pressure cold spray (CS) and laser-assisted cold spray (LACS) methods. The process-microstructure-property relationships of the coatings were investigated and compared. Reciprocating sliding wear tests were performed in ambient conditions on the coatings with WC/Co counterface spheres. The addition of different morphologies of hard ceramic phases to the Cantor alloy matrix had varying effects on the wear rate, and on the friction and wear behavior of the CS coatings. Indeed, the MMC coatings containing WC agglomerated particles presented a higher wear rate than the Cantor CS reference coating, namely due to the low intrinsic cohesion strength of the agglomerated particles. In turn, agglomerated particle decohesion caused fine hard WC particle dispersion on the wear track and severe abrasive wear. The spherical cast WC particle-containing MMC coatings, however, presented a reduced wear rate due to the formation of a stable oxide tribolayer. The LACS coatings presented an increased cohesion strength compared to their CS counterparts with slightly improved wear rates. |
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