Assessment of non-uniform residual stress field of the thermal sprayed stainless steel coatings on aluminium substrates by the integral hole drilling method

Thermal spray is one of the most used techniques to produce coatings on structural materials. Such coatings are used as protection against high temperatures, corrosion, erosion and wear. The combined action of high pressures, temperatures and spraying conditions give rise to non-uniform residual stresses. The latter plays an important role in coating design and process parameters optimization. The present work highlights the influence of coatings thickness on the evolution of residual stresses in layered materials. Therefore, thick stainless steel coatings (ASTM 301) of different thicknesses are manufactured by wire arc spraying on aluminium alloy substrates (ASTM 2017A). For a better bond strength, a Ni–Al bond coat is first deposited. Furthermore, a numerically supported hole drilling strain gage method for residual stress field evaluation is proposed. Required calibration coefficients, for the strain–stress transformation formalism based on the integral method, are computed through finite element calculations using Abaqus software. The results indicate that the maximum residual stresses, for all thicknesses, are tensile and range from 140 to 275 MPa. The bond coat does not seem to affect the stress field. Also, it was found that the mean equivalent Von-Mises stress decreases with increasing coating thickness; hence reducing the interfacial adhesion energy of the sprayed materials.