Analysis of copper-tungsten cold spray coating: Kinetics of coating formation and its thermal properties

The tungsten-copper composites are used in industry as electrical contact materials due to high thermal conductivity, high melting temperature of tungsten and low coefficient of thermal expansion. In this work the process of deposition of the composite copper-tungsten cold spray coating was studied. Kinetics of the coating formation process was analyzed using specially developed analytical model based on the probability approach. It was shown the mass percentage of tungsten mass percentage in the coating could not exceed 52%. The modeling results were in good agreement with experimental data. Thermal conductivity of the composite coatings with different tungsten percentage was experimentally measured and compared with the theoretical results calculated using Hasselman – Johnson model. It was found that the thermal conductivity of the copper-tungsten coating depended on the percentage of the tungsten. •Deposition of copper‑tungsten composite cold spray coating was performed.•Kinetics of coating formation was analyzed using developed analytical model.•Tungsten mass percentage in the coating does not exceed 52%.•Thermal conductivity varies from ~317 W/m ∗ K to ~201 W/m ∗ K depending on W content.