A New Process for Preparing Fine-ceramic-containing Composite Coatings──Flame Spray Synthesis

Flame spray synthesis (FSS), a combination of the flame spray technology and Self-propagation High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) was developed for preparing fine-ceramic-containing composite coatings. It can simplify the preparations of powder to synthesize and deposit the desired materials in one step. The preliminary results obtained from TiC-Fe cermet coatings by FSS process are reported. The peculiar microstructure of the composite coatings, which contains very fine (<1μm) and round TiC and alternate TiC-rich (Hv=11-13 GPa) and TiC-poor layers (Hv=3.0-6.0 GPa), is expected to play an important role in their tribological properties.