Cold Spray Coatings

CenterLine's Cold Spray coatings products and services deliver unique and distinct benefits to a wide range of industries. "Cold Spray" can best be described as a solid-state metal spraying process. Essentially, metal particles in the form of a powder are introduced into a cold, high-speed gas stream nozzle tube and directed toward a metal or glass substrate. The kinetic energy of supersonically accelerated fine metal particles is used for bonding to produce a new metal coating.
 
Cold Spray is accepted as a member of the Thermal Spray family and also known as:

• Gas Dynamic Spray
• High-Velocity Powder Deposition
• Kinetic Spraying
• Kinetic Energy Metallization
• Supersonic Particle Deposition

CenterLine has chosen to employ the term "Low-Pressure Cold Gas-Dynamic Spray", which has been selected since it is unique, unambiguous, and communicates the exact nature of the process. Pressure is included in the process designation to distinguish CenterLine's proprietary system that uses commonly available compressed air rather than more complex systems that require the use of high-pressure inert gas.

The Cold Spray process is ideal for many types of coatings needs, including:

• Metal Restoration and Sealing - Engine blocks, castings, molds and dies, weld seams, auto body repair, HVAC equipment, refrigeration equipment, heat exchangers
• Thermal Barriers - Aluminum piston heads, manifolds, disc brakes, aircraft engine components
• Thermal Dissipation - Copper or aluminum for heat sinks for microelectronics
• Wear Resistant Coatings - Metallic-ceramic matrix, Solid lubricant matrix with base metals
• Electronically Conductive Coatings - Copper or aluminum patches on metal, ceramic or polymeric components
• Localized corrosion protection - Zinc or aluminum deposits on affected helms, weldments or other joints
• Biomedical - Biocompatible/bioactive materials on orthopedic implants, prostheses, dental implants

Beneficial characteristics of Cold Spray coatings include:

• Low-temperature application (in comparison to Thermal Spray processes)
• Very low oxidation
• No detrimental impact on temperature-sensitive grain structures (e.g., nano-structured, Amorphous)
• Favourable compressive residual stresses
• Gradient deposits
• Suitable for many substrate materials (metals, glass, composites)
• High density, low porosity coatings (typically <0.5 %)
• Minimal substrate distortion at thicknesses as low as (0.005")
• Minimal surface preparation needs.

Visit our Supersonic Spray Technologies website at www.supersonicspray.com for information on this exciting technology and to learn more about CenterLine's standard and custom Cold Spray systems and services.