On the Importance of Secondary Component Properties for Cold Spray Metallization of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers

In previous studies at McGill University, tin was successfully cold sprayed onto carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs). A “crack-filling” mechanism was described as the deposition mechanism that allowed deposition of tin onto the CFRP. Improving the coating conductivity for lightning strike protection (LSP) purposes was explored by adding other metal powders (aluminum, copper, zinc) to tin and cold spraying on the CFRP. At the same time, it was noticed that the addition of this secondary component (SC) provided an increase in deposition efficiency (DE); tamping was initially hypothesized to explain this improvement, thus prompting a study solely on the effect of SC hardness. However, it is recognized that other powder characteristics may also be influencing the DE. Thus, in this study, SCs with a wider variety of particle sizes, morphologies, densities and hardness values were mixed with tin and sprayed on CFRPs. The effect of SC properties on tin deposition is discussed and, while SC particle size, morphology and density individually do not notably influence the DE, the impact energy of the SC does. This opens a discussion on optimal parameters for deposition of metals on CFRP, based on results and observations from the literature.