Abstract
The high velocity oxygen fuel(HVOF) thermal spray is a kind of surface modification techniques to produce the sprayed coating layer. This process is to form the coating layer after spraying the powder to molten or semi-molten state by the ultra-high speed at the high-temperature heat source and conflicting with a substrate. The efficiency of thermal spraying is dropped, however, because the semi-molten powder in a spray process become a factor that degrades the mechanical property by the formed pore within the coating layer. Therefore, it is necessary to melt completely the thermal spray powder in order to produce the coating layer with an optimal adhesive force. In this study, to improve the wear resistance, corrosion resistance and heat resistance, the plungers of high-speed and ultra-high pressure reciprocating hydraulic pumps used in ironworks are manufactured with STS $420J_2$ and are coated by the powders of WC-Co-Cr and WC-Cr-Ni including the WC of high hardness using a HVOF thermal sprayer developed in this laboratory. These are called by the surface-modified plungers. The surface roughness, hardness, and surface and cross-sectional microstructure of these two surface-modified and conventional ceramic plungers are measured and compared before operation with after operation for 100 days. It is found that the values of centerline average surface roughness and maximum height for conventional ceramic plunger are 9.5 to 10.8 and 5.2 to 5.7 times higher than those of surface-modified ones coated by WC-Co-Cr and WC-Cr-Ni because the fine tops and bottoms on surface roughness curve of conventional ceramic plunger are approximately 100 times higher than those of surface-modified ones. In addition, the pores and scratches in the surface microstructure are considerably formed in the order of conventional ceramic, WC-Cr-Ni and WC-Co-Cr surface-modified plungers. The greater the WC content of high hardness powder is less the change in the plunger surface.
