Industry Spotlight: Industrial Machinery
Today, the effectiveness of thermal spray coatings has been proven in a great array of applications and industries. For example, many businesses in the industrial machinery industry have benefited from using thermal spraying technique. What’s more, it is very possible to create fully customized thermal spray coatings that can help extend the working lifespan of equipment as well as improve their efficiency for everyday use.
Repair Applications for the Industrial Machinery Industry
From reducing downtime to saving money to improving quality, do you know that it is possible to enjoy all these benefits at one go? It’s when you opt to REPAIR your industrial machinery and equipment, and not REPLACE them! Thinking about you can make this possible? You see, you can extend the equipment lifespan by applying the right coatings that are designed to reduce future wear and corrosion and rebuild diameters. At A&A Coatings, we have the capability to combine weld overlays and thermal spray coatings with precision finishing and precision machining.
To help you understand how thermal spraying and this industry go hand in hand, here is a quick look at the common applications that you can use industrial machinery coatings for:
- Compressors: Turbo shafts and rotor assemblies as well as reciprocating pistons and cylinders
- Valves: Stems, bodies and guides
- Agitators/Mixers: Complete assemblies, blades, paddles and shafts
- Bearing housings: Thrust and radial
- Gearbox covers: Mostly to repair worn bores
- Liquid or vacuum pumps: Rotors and cases
Common Coatings for the Industrial Machinery Industry
As industrial machinery components need to operate at optimal level for longer periods of time, the coatings that can make that happen include tungsten carbide, chrome oxide ceramic, and aluminum oxide ceramic. These coatings help increase sliding wear resistance, abrasion resistance, and corrosion resistance, which are the desirable characteristics of every industrial equipment.
HVOF: One of the Key Thermal Spray Processes Utilized for the Industrial Machinery Industry
The early HVOF process was developed during the 1980s and was designed to be an accessible market alternative to Union Carbide’s Detonation gun process. Also known as the High Velocity Oxygen Fuel process, it utilizes the internal combustion of several fuel gases, including kerosene, hydrogen, propane, or propylene with oxygen. The aim of the combustion is to produce a hypersonic gas stream to feed the coating material.
You can expect the powder to be heated and propelled by the gas stream (the speed: hypersonic velocities) against the workpiece. This is where the molten coating particles impact before forming a homogenous coating structure. If you are coating with tungsten carbide, you can expect to see a similar composition like this: 86% tungsten carbide with 10% cobalt and 4% chromium.
Work with Us Today!
You will love the fact that as one of the leading thermal spray service providers in the market, the HVOF process is just one of our specialties at A&A Coatings, as we provide other coating services such as metalizing, plasma spraying, and spray and fuse hardfacing. When it comes to industrial machinery applications, our solutions can help you eliminate hassles of working with multiple vendors, shortened lead times and reduced costs. Contact us for more information today!
