The Effect of Argon as Atomization Gas on the Microstructure, Machine Hammer Peening Post-Treatment, and Corrosion Behavior of Twin Wire Arc Sprayed (TWAS) ZnAl4 Coatings

In the twin wire arc spraying (TWAS) process, it is common to use compressed air as atomizing gas. Nitrogen or argon also are used to reduce oxidation and improve coating performance. The heat required to melt the feedstock material depends on the electrical conductivity of the wires used and the ionization energy of both the feedstock material and atomization gas. In the case of ZnAl4, no phase changes were recorded in the obtained coatings by using either compressed air or argon as atomization gas. This fact has led to the assumption that the melting behavior of ZnAl4 with its low melting and evaporating temperature is different from materials with a higher melting point, such as Fe and Ni, which also explains the unexpected compressive residual stresses in the as-sprayed conditions. The heavier atomization gas, argon, led to slightly higher compressive stresses and oxide content. Compressed air as atomization gas led to lower porosity, decreased surface roughness, and better corrosion resistance. In the case of argon, Al precipitated in the form of small particles. The post-treatment machine hammer peening (MHP) has induced horizontal cracks in compressed air sprayed coatings. These cracks were mainly initiated in the oxidized Al phase.

Thermally Assisted Machine Hammer Peening of Arc-Sprayed ZnAl-Based Corrosion Protective Coatings

Structural elements of offshore facilities, e.g., offshore wind turbines, are subject to static and dynamic mechanical and environmental loads, for example, from wind, waves, and corrosive media. Protective coatings such as thermal sprayed ZnAl coatings are often used for protection, mainly against corrosive stresses. The Machine Hammer Peening (MHP) process is an innovative and promising technique for the post-treatment of ZnAl coating systems that helps reducing roughness and porosity and inducing compressive residual stresses. This should lead to an enhancement of the corrosion fatigue behavior. In this paper, the effect of a thermally assisted MHP process was investigated. The softening of the coating materials will have a direct effect on the densification, residual porosity and the distribution of cracks. The investigation results showed the influence of thermally assisted MHP on the surface properties, porosity, residual stresses, and hardness of the post-treated coatings. The best densification of the coating, i.e., the lowest porosity and roughness and the highest compressive residual stresses, were achieved at a process temperature of 300 °C. A further increase in temperature on the other hand caused a higher porosity and, in some cases, locally restricted melting of the coating and consequently poorer coating properties.

Surface Integrity of AISI 52100 Bearing Steel after Robot-Based Machine Hammer Peening

AISI 52100 steel is often used as material for highly loaded rolling bearings in machine tools. An improved surface integrity, which can be achieved by means of mechanical surface layer finishing, can avoid premature failure. One of these finishing processes is machine hammer peening (MHP) which is a high-frequency incremental forming process and mostly used on machining centers. However, the influence of robot-guided MHP processing on the surface integrity of AISI 52100 steel is still unknown. Therefore, the objective of this work is to investigate experimentally the robot-based influences during MHP processing and the resulting surface integrity of unhardened AISI 52100 steel. The results show that the axial and lateral deviations of the robot due to process vibrations are in the lower µm range, thus enabling stable and reproducible MHP processing. By selecting suitable MHP process parameters and thus defined contact energies, even ground surfaces can be further smoothed and a hardness increase of 75% in the energy range considered can be achieved. In addition, compressive residual stress maxima of 950 MPa below the surface and a grain size reduction to a surface layer depth of 150 µm can be realized.

Effect of machine hammer peening on the surface integrity of a ZnAl-based corrosion protective coating

Thermally sprayed protective coatings are applied onto many mechanically stressed components such as support structures, shafts, turbine blades or heat exchangers. In addition to the static or cyclic load, a superimposition with corrosion processes occurs in many cases. Thermal sprayed ZnAl coatings are known for their performant corrosion protection properties. Within this context, the potential of ZnAl-based layer systems was analyzed regarding corrosion fatigue behavior. Therefore, a timeand cost-efficient testing strategy based on a corrosion-superimposed load increase procedure was used to estimate the effects of a corrosive attack during cyclic loading. The investigated coating systems were thermally sprayed and partially post-processed with a Machine Hammer Peening (MHP) operation. This treatment was identified as an appropriate technique for compressing and smoothing coated surfaces. The inter-relationships between the parametrization of the MHP process, the resulting surface integrity, and the estimated corrosion fatigue properties were analyzed. The investigations indicate a positive effect of MHP post-processing operations on the surface properties of the ZnAl-based coating system.

Maschinelles Oberflächen- hämmern additiver Bauteile/High-frequency mechanical surface layer finishing of laser-welded materials. Machine hammer peening of additive components

Additive Fertigungsverfahren gewinnen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Aufgrund der zumeist abweichenden Randzoneneigenschaften im Vergleich zu konventionellen Herstellungsprozessen finden additive Verfahren jedoch noch keine weite Verbreitung in hochbelasteten Luftfahrtkomponenten. Eine Randzonenendbearbeitung kann die mechanischen Bauteileigenschaften verbessern. Aus diesem Grund wurde der Einfluss des maschinellen Oberflächenhämmerns auf die Randzone laseraufgeschweißter Werkstoffe untersucht.   Additive manufacturing processes are becoming increasingly important. However, due to the mostly deviating surface layer properties compared to conventional manufacturing processes, additive methods are not yet widely used in highly stressed aerospace components. Surface layer finishing can improve the mechanical components‘ properties. For this reason, the influence of machine hammer peening on the surface layer of laser-welded materials was investigated.