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Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability

The TriplexPro™-210 plasma spray torch (Oerlikon Metco) is a three-cathode plasma generator. It became a kind of workhorse for the wide range of tasks handled at the Jülich Thermal Spray Center (JTSC). Compared to conventional single-cathode torches, the cascaded design of the nozzle suggests low fl...

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Autores principales: Mauer, Georg, Kurze, Frank, Rauwald, Karl-Heinz, Vaßen, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9501464/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36143515
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15186203
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author Mauer, Georg
Kurze, Frank
Rauwald, Karl-Heinz
Vaßen, Robert
author_facet Mauer, Georg
Kurze, Frank
Rauwald, Karl-Heinz
Vaßen, Robert
author_sort Mauer, Georg
collection PubMed
description The TriplexPro™-210 plasma spray torch (Oerlikon Metco) is a three-cathode plasma generator. It became a kind of workhorse for the wide range of tasks handled at the Jülich Thermal Spray Center (JTSC). Compared to conventional single-cathode torches, the cascaded design of the nozzle suggests low fluctuations of the arc and thus high stability. However, after a certain time, degradation sets in even with such a torch, impairing the reliability of the process. It is therefore important to detect indications of performance loss in time and not only during the inspection of the deposited layer. In this study, standard samples of YSZ thermal barrier coatings were sprayed regularly over a period of two years. Operational data and feedstock characteristics were collected and correlated with the area-specific mass deposition. It turned out that the measured substrate surface temperature showed a distinct correlation. Searching for the reasons for the temperature variations, several process parameters could be ruled out as they are monitored by calibrated sensors, controlled, and their time course is recorded by the control unit. Moreover, there are other parameters, which can have a considerable impact such as the robot alignment or the substrate cooling conditions. However, the purposeful experimental variation of such variables resulted in a variability of the mass deposition being considerably smaller than observed over the two years. Thus, it can be concluded that torch degradation had a pronounced effect, too. The substrate surface temperature can be used as indicator for the torch status and the reliability of the spray process.
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spelling pubmed-95014642022-09-24 Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability Mauer, Georg Kurze, Frank Rauwald, Karl-Heinz Vaßen, Robert Materials (Basel) Article The TriplexPro™-210 plasma spray torch (Oerlikon Metco) is a three-cathode plasma generator. It became a kind of workhorse for the wide range of tasks handled at the Jülich Thermal Spray Center (JTSC). Compared to conventional single-cathode torches, the cascaded design of the nozzle suggests low fluctuations of the arc and thus high stability. However, after a certain time, degradation sets in even with such a torch, impairing the reliability of the process. It is therefore important to detect indications of performance loss in time and not only during the inspection of the deposited layer. In this study, standard samples of YSZ thermal barrier coatings were sprayed regularly over a period of two years. Operational data and feedstock characteristics were collected and correlated with the area-specific mass deposition. It turned out that the measured substrate surface temperature showed a distinct correlation. Searching for the reasons for the temperature variations, several process parameters could be ruled out as they are monitored by calibrated sensors, controlled, and their time course is recorded by the control unit. Moreover, there are other parameters, which can have a considerable impact such as the robot alignment or the substrate cooling conditions. However, the purposeful experimental variation of such variables resulted in a variability of the mass deposition being considerably smaller than observed over the two years. Thus, it can be concluded that torch degradation had a pronounced effect, too. The substrate surface temperature can be used as indicator for the torch status and the reliability of the spray process. MDPI 2022-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9501464/ /pubmed/36143515 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15186203 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Mauer, Georg
Kurze, Frank
Rauwald, Karl-Heinz
Vaßen, Robert
Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title_full Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title_fullStr Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title_full_unstemmed Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title_short Condition Monitoring of a Three-Cathode Cascaded Plasma Spray Torch Regarding Process Reliability
title_sort condition monitoring of a three-cathode cascaded plasma spray torch regarding process reliability
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9501464/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36143515
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15186203
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