Influence of surface oxide film on deposition behavior of cold spray emulated particle by single particle shot system

In a cold spray technique (CS), which used for making dense and thick metallic coatings, the fine solid metallic particles are impinged and deposited on a substrate at subsonic or supersonic velocity. The property and performance of a CS metallic coating significantly depends on the bonding state of particle-substrate and particle-particle interfaces. Therefore, the deposition mechanism of the CS particles has become one of the most important research targets. However, it is difficult to experimentally evaluate the deposition mechanism due to numerous impingements of very fine particles with various size and shape. In this study, in order to evaluate the deposition mechanism, a CS emulated environment was created by a single particle shot system (SPSS) in which spherical particle with 1 mm diameter is impinged on a substrate. The influence of substrate surface oxide film on deposition behavior of a spherical Al particle with 1 mm diameter was investigated. The thickness of surface oxide film on a substrate was controlled by heat treatment and estimated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Using the SPSS, Al particles were impinged on the substrates with different surface oxide film thicknesses. The critical velocity, which means the starting velocity for particle deposition, and the microstructure of deposited particle were evaluated. From the results, it was found that the surface oxide films on substrates play important roles on the deposition behavior of the Al particle.