Prediction of critical velocity during cold spraying based on a coupled thermomechanical eulerian model

In cold spraying (CS), critical velocity of particles is one of the most important parameters. The impacting particle and substrate inevitably undergo a strong thermomechanical coupling process at the contacting interface and serious plastic deformation in a very short time. In this paper, a coupled thermomechanical Eulerian (CTM-Eulerian) model was, for the first time, developed for CS particles to investigate plastic deformation and heat conduction within the bulk, and to predict the critical velocity. Results show that heat conduction has a significant effect on the temperature distribution within the particle which will influence the atom diffusion at the impacting interface, while a little influence on plastic deformation. Moreover, based on the deformed particle shapes and plastic strain analysis, a calculated critical velocity of about 300 m/s for copper is obtained. Finally, this CTM-Eulerian model is extended to other commonly sprayed materials and the predicted critical velocities of Fe, Ni, SS304, Al, In718, and TC4 are about 350, 380, 395, 410, 490, and 500 m/s, respectively.