Wear Analysis of Detonation Gun Sprayed Coatings Deposited on High Strength Tensile Steel

This paper aims to bring forth the wear behavior of EN-31 steel when coated with specific coating materials for application in concrete mixer shovel blade. There are several routes of applying coating on a metal substrate like deposition of vapors through physical and chemical methods, praying the coating material in cold and hot forms etc. In this work detonation gun spray coating technique was used due to its simplicity and economic viability. Chromium carbide nickel-chrome (Cr3C2-25NiCr) and nickel-chrome (Ni-Cr) coatings were applied to the EN-31 steel substrate using the detonation gun spray (DGS) process. Microstructural changes occurring after coating have been analyzed in this work along with the wear rates (loss of material volume when subjected to specific wear conditions). Synthesized specimens were subjected wear loading conditions and put to wear test through a sliding wear tribomter which utilized . Analysis of the deposited coating and the properties exhibited by the coated material were assessed through various techniques including Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (SEM/ EDAX) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). It was observed that Ni-Cr coatings provided better wear resistance than Chromium carbide nickel-chrome coatings and are expected to perform well under the action of wear loads in concrete mixer application.