Abstract
Molybdenum-based thermal spray powder is widely used for coating the moving parts of the internal combustion engines due to its excellent wear resistance. A composite powder of the $Mo_{40}(Al_{1-x}Si_x)_{60}$ system was synthesized using the SHS method. The synthesized bulk was pulverized and specially treated to produce thermal spray powder. It was found that the synthesis reaction consisted of two-steps: the formation of $Al_8/Mo_3$ and the formation of Mo(Al,Si)$_2$. Both the temperature and the rate of the SHS reaction linearly increased with the increase of the value of x in $Mo_{40}(Al_{1-x}Si_x)_{60}$, The temperature and the rate of the reaction were also affected by the compacting density of the specimens, exhibiting the maximum valves at 62% and 60%, respectively. Since spherical shape is advantageous to the thermal spraying process, shape-control of the powder was attempted with PVA as a binding additive, resulting in the successful production of almost perfectly spherical powder of 80 $\mu\textrm{m}$ Ø$(d_{50})$ mean particle size.