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The Effect of Spray Distance and Scanning Step

on the Coating Thickness Uniformity in Cold
Spray Process
ARTICLE in JOURNAL OF THERMAL SPRAY TECHNOLOGY OCTOBER 2013
Impact Factor: 1.49 DOI: 10.1007/s11666-013-0002-0

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JTTEE5 23:354362
DOI: 10.1007/s11666-013-0002-0
1059-9630/$19.00 ASM International

The Effect of Spray Distance and Scanning

Step on the Coating Thickness Uniformity
in Cold Spray Process
Zhenhua Cai, Sihao Deng, Hanlin Liao, Chunnian Zeng, and Ghislain Montavon
(Submitted September 7, 2012; in revised form July 11, 2013)
In the process of cold spray applications, robot kinematic parameters represent significant influences on
the coating quality. Those parameters include: spray distance, spray angle, gun relative velocity to
substrate, scanning step, and cycle numbers. The combined effects which are caused by their interactions
determine the coating thickness. The increasing requirements of coating productivity lead to the
objectivity of analyzing the effect of robot kinematic parameters. So it becomes necessary to optimize the
robot trajectory for spraying process in order to obtain a desired coating thickness. This study aims at
investigating the relationship between the coating profile and the spray distance, scanning step, and
introducing the basic principle of a software toolkit named thermal spray toolkit (TST) developed in our
laboratory to generate the optimized robot trajectories in spray processes including thermal spray and
cold spray. Experiments have been carried out to check the reliability of the simulated coating profile
and the calculated coating thickness by TST.

Keywords

coating thickness, coating profile prediction, cold

spray, robot trajectory, scanning step, spray
distance

1. Introduction
Thermal spray technology consists of a group of different processes which can elaborate coatings with
metallic or nonmetallic materials (i.e., pure metals, alloys,
ceramics, polymers, and composites). These materials are
deposited in a molten, semi-molten, or even solid state on
the substrate (Ref 1). Cold spraying is an emerging coating
process. In this process, particles are injected into a high
speed gas jet and accelerated to a high velocity (3001200 m/s) (Ref 2). The coating consists of particles with
intensive plastic deformation during impact in a solid state
at a temperature well below the melting point of this
material (Ref 3).
As shown in literatures (Ref 4-6), the homogeneity of
coating thickness is influenced not only by the single
coating profile but also the robot kinematic parameters.
The single coating profile is determined by the material
properties, spray distance from the nozzle to the substrate,
spray angle, substrate properties, the substrate deformation caused by local heat transfer, etc. Series of publicaZhenhua Cai, Sihao Deng, Hanlin Liao and Ghislain Montavon,
IRTES- LERMPS, Universite de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard, 90010 Belfort Cedex, France; and Chunnian Zeng,
Automation School, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan
China. Contact e-mail: Zhenhua.cai@utbm.fr.

354Volume 23(3) February 2014

tions have shown that single coating profile can be

characterized by mathematic formulae (Ref 6, 7, 9), which
offer the possibility to simulate and optimize the effect of
robotic kinematic parameters with mathematical software.
If a large number of single coating profiles are summed up,
the distribution of the summed profile can be approximately considered as a continuous curve (Ref 6).
Some publications concerning with the similar subjects
have been considered in this article (Ref 4-10). Li et al.
(Ref 11) analyzed the effect of spray angle on coating
characteristics using cold spraying, and reported that the
relative coating efficiency was maximum at spray angles
ranging from 80 to 90; and when the spray angle
decreased to approximately 40, there was almost no
particle deposited on the substrate and the relative coating
efficiency tended to zero. Kout et al. (Ref 7) investigated
the planning path-oriented spray-coating processes, which
represented an optimization method to compute and
approximate the desired coating thickness with relative
coating parameters. Fasching et al. (Ref 12) presented an
approach for spraying layers using robotic thermal spray
system, they offered equations to optimize the spray angle,
and thus to generate more accurate robot trajectories.
In cold spraying, the single scanned coating is normal
rather narrow comparing with other thermal spray processes and the step between two scanning is normally
small to guarantee a uniform coating thickness. But few
literatures considered this problem. This study thus
focused on the effect of spray distance and scanning step
on the coating thickness uniformity in cold spray process
Based on the above mentioned conclusions, the single
coating profile is simulated with symmetric Gaussian distribution curve in this study, and combining the curve with
the optimized robot kinematic parameters offered by

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

2. Experimental Conditions
and Operation Parameters
The kinematic parameters of cold spray process are
demonstrated in Fig. 1: spray distance is the distance from
the nozzle exit of spray gun to the substrate surface;
scanning step is the distance of two neighbor scanning
passes; spray angle is the angle between the centerline of
the spray gun and the substrate surface; gun velocity is the
relative velocity between spray gun and substrate.
The experiment was carried out on polished aluminum
substrates. The aluminum 5056 (average particle size
40 lm) feedstock powder is selected for this study. An
optimized rectangular nozzle, designed by LERMPS,
having an expansion ratio of 4.9 and a divergent length of
170 mm was used. The nozzle has a throat section of
2 9 2.7 mm and an exit section of 4.4 9 6 mm. Compressed air was used as the driving gas at a temperature of
873 k. Argon was used as the powder carrier gas at a
pressure of 2.8 MPa. The spray gun is guided by an IRB
2400 robot (ABB, Switzerland). In order to measure
precisely the single scanned coating profile, a coordinate
measuring machine was used (Derby ETALON accuracy: 0.0001 mm). The robot program is simulated in
RobotStudio5.13 (Off-line programming software of
ABB) before its application. During the spraying process,
the spray distance is changed from 10 to 70 mm. The gun
velocity is kept to 10 mm/s in order to obtain a very thick
coating. Thus only one layer coating was applied on a
plane substrate. The spray angle has been kept to 90. The
points which are picked up by coordinate measuring machine from the single coating profile are fitted as curves

and mathematic equations were deduced from those

curves using Matlab to represent the coating profile in
TST, and then the simulated coating profiles are compared
with the experimental results.

3. Experimental Results and Analysis

The coating profile was measured after being sprayed
by the cold spray system, different spray distances (10, 30,
50, and 70 mm) are applied during the experimental process. The single coating profile is measured five times; the
average single coating thickness is calculated as the mean
value of those five measured coating thickness. In order to
mathematically analyze the coating profile, the software
tool Matlab for numerical computing is employed.
According to the first visual analysis of the curve, the
Gaussian distribution was then chosen for further simulation because the symmetric characteristics of the curve.
The simulation process can be described as follows: about
30 points picked up from each coating profiles are
imported to Matlab; the distribution of 2D coating profile
is then approximately fitted as a Gaussian curve with a
constant coefficient. Relative coating profiles under different spray distances are shown in Fig. 2. It can be
observed that the thickest profile appears at a spray distance equal to 50 mm (nearly 1.5 mm).
Suppose r represents the standard deviation of
Gaussian equation. l represents the mean value of
Gaussian equation; Z(x) represents the value of Gaussian
equation and also stands for the height of 2D coating
profile; S(x) represents the surface of 2D coating profile; K
is the constant coefficient of Gaussian equation; l represents the length of 2D coating profile.
According to the definition of Gaussian equation, 2D
coating profile is represented by the following equation:

Fig. 1 Parameters of cold spray process

Fig. 2 Fitted 2D coating profiles under different spray distances

in Matlab

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

Volume 23(3) February 2014355

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thermal spraying toolkit (TST), a software package

developed by LERMPS, the suitable coating thickness can
be obtained within the required tolerances. A concept
named flatness is added to illustrate the homogeneity of
coated thickness, and the relevant simulated coating
thickness and flatness result which were calculated by TST
have been presented and displayed on the graphic interface of TST.

Peer Reviewed

"
#
K
x  l2
Zx p exp 
:
2r2
r 2p

Eq 1

used by Matlab as the simulation function is presented as

follows:
Zx a1  expx  b1=c12 :

From Matlab, it can be observed that the simulated curve

is smoother and more symmetrical than the real coating
profile, and is also easy to precisely analyze in terms of
mathematic parameters. The R2 is 98.92%, which means
the fitting result is nearly perfect. The Gaussian equation

Eq 2

When comparing with Eq 1, the following relationship is

deduced:
p
K
a1 p b1 l c1 2r:
2pr

Eq 3

Therefore the value l, r, K is calculated by the following

equations:
p
C1
l b1 r p K a1  2pr:
2

Fig. 3 Standard deviation curve and maximum coating thickness

Table 1 Surface of 2D coating profiles under different

spray distances
Spray distance, mm
2

Surface of 2D profile, mm

10

30

50

70

5.68

7.8

9.462

8.394

Eq 4

According to the definition of Gaussian function, standard

deviation r represents the extent of Gaussian distribution.
K influences the thickness of coating profile. With the
calculated values, the deposit height as a function that
represents the particle impact distribution on the aluminum substrate under different spray distances can be obtained. Standard deviation values calculated under
different spray distances are represented in Fig. 3.
From Fig. 3, it can be observed that the spray distance
has a significant influence on the coating thickness: the
values calculated in Fig. 3 verify that the thickest coating
profile appears at a spray distance of 50 mm, which is
1.325 mm.
In order to make further analysis, the deposition efficiency is considered. Under the same experimental conditions, the surface of each 2D coating profile can
approximately illustrate its deposition efficiency. The
surface of 2D coating profile S(k) is represented by Eq 5:

Fig. 4 Interface of thermal spray toolkit

356Volume 23(3) February 2014

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

Zxdx

K

Zl
0

Zl
0

"
#
K
x  l2
p exp 
dx
2r2
r 2p

"
#
1
x  l2
p exp 
dx:
2r2
r 2p

(Eq 5)

According to the definition of Gaussian function, the

surface under Gaussian curve is always equal to 1. Then
the surface of 2D coating profile can be represented by:
S x K

Eq 6

K is deduced by Eq 3. Thus, the surface of 2D coating

profile of different spray distances can be calculated, as
shown in Table 1.
From Table 1, it can be concluded that the maximum
value of S(x) appears at a spray distance of 50 mm, which
means the best deposition efficiency can be obtained at
that spray distance; compared to 7.8 mm2, the S(x) value
decreases a little at a spray distance equal to 30 or 70 mm
(no more than 2 mm2); at a spray distance of 10 mm, the
surface of 2D coating profile decreases obviously, which is
5.68 mm2; this means compared to the spray distance of
50 mm, the coating surface decreases almost 40%.
From the above experimental results, the spray distance is associated with relative particle distribution at
impact with the substrate, and therefore represents different coating profiles on the substrate, so it has significant
influence on the width and height of 2D coating profile.
For the aluminum 5056 used in this study, there exists an
optimal spray distance which represents the best deposition efficiency. If the spray distance is lower than this
optimal value, the particles is not accelerated enough to

obtain the best deposition efficiency; furthermore, if the

spray distance is above this optimal value, the particle
velocity is decreased sharply, which means the relative
deposition efficiency will be decreased.
By measuring and fitting the 2D coating profile, the
mathematic model is obtained, which offers possibility to
simulate the 2D coating profile in the software. Based on
the above work, a new function of TST is developed to
simulate the 2D coating profile and to calculate the final
coating thickness.

4. Thermal Spray Toolkit

TST is a developed graphic toolkit which is based on
RobotStudio (product of ABB Company) to predict
coating thickness and relative flatness; it is developed in C#
(developing environment of Microsoft company) and
with MSChart [A chart that graphically displays data
(Ref 13)]. The data exchange between TST and RobotStudio is based on API functions (Ref 14). The interface
of this function is similar to an assistant system which is
designed to provide operational parameters by reasoning
about knowledge library (Ref 15, 16). The interface is

Fig. 5 Coating profile

Fig. 6 Off-normal spray angle on half Gaussian curve

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

Volume 23(3) February 2014357

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S x

Zl

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Fig. 7 Coating thickness simulated under different scanning steps. (a) Scanning step = 2 (mm). (b) Scanning step = 3 (mm). (c) Scanning
step = 5 (mm). (d) Scanning step = 7 (mm)

divided into two groups: parameter group, which permits

importing the experimental parameters (e.g., material
parameters library) and required parameters (e.g., scanning step, spray distance), as well as exporting the calculated parameters (e.g., coating thickness); graphic group,
which permits displaying the 2D coating profile and the
calculated thickness curve, as shown in Fig. 4.

358Volume 23(3) February 2014

Under normal conditions (for example, constant

material, experimental parameters; some robotic parameters), coating profile curve can be considered as a constant curve which is described by Eq 1. The coating
process is considered as the accumulation of some coating
films. For one layer coating, the final coating profile can be
approximated as a continuous curve (Fig. 5). Thereby the

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

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Fig. 7 continued

Table 2 Coating thickness calculated based on different scanning steps

Scanning step, mm
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Coating thickness max, mm

Coating thickness min, mm

Average
thickness, mm

Flatness, %

1.22
0.81
0.61
0.495
0.43
0.39
0.39

1.22
0.81
0.609
0.481
0.38
0.292
0.216

1.22
0.81
0.61
0.488
0.4
0.34
0.3

100
100
99.82
97.17
87.95
74.87
55.38

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

Volume 23(3) February 2014359

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Fig. 8 Relationship between coating thickness and step length

following equation is proposed to simulate the final coating thickness:

F x mZ1 x Z2 x  p . . . Zn x  n  p
(
"
#
K
x  l2
m p exp 
2r2
r 2p
"
#
K
x  p  l2
p exp 
2r2
r 2p
"
#)
K
x  n  p  l2
:
. . . p exp 
2r2
r 2p
Eq 7
where F(x) is the coating thickness value, x is the abscise
value, p is the scanning step which represents the linear
distance of two neighbor coating peaks, n is the nth
coating profile, m is the cycle number.
As shown in Fig. 5, starting from the second pass, offnormal spray angles for subsequent passes will appear. For
mathematically analyzing the value of off-normal spray
angles, half the Gaussian curve (standard deviation: 3) is
divided into small sections with interval length of 0.1 mm
in horizontal axis. The first derivative of the function Z(x)
is the slop of the tangent to the function at each points x,
so the off-normal angle can be calculated by:


 0 


Anglex arctan z x  180=p




2


x
x2

arctan  p e 2r  180=p:
Eq 8
3
2pr
Figure 6 shows the maximum off-normal spray angle is
less than 1.6 at a standard deviation of 3, which confirms
that the simulation equation and the simulated result can
be accepted in certain tolerance.
The simulated results can be directly obtained from the
interface of TST (Fig. 7), which helps to determine the
robot kinematic parameters before carrying out the
experiment. More accurate data are shown in Table 2;
coating thickness is calculated based on different scanning
steps. Flatness represents the percentage of minimum

360Volume 23(3) February 2014

coating thickness and the maximum coating thickness,

which stands for the homogeneity of coating surface. In
this table scanning steps are changed from 2 to 8 mm to
calculate average thickness and relative flatness, and to
find the relationship between scanning step and average
coating thickness.
From Table 2, it can be observed that the average
thickness decreases with the increment of scanning step.
The calculated flatness of coated surface is 100% when
scanning steps are less than 3 mm; this means the calculated coated surface is absolutely flat. However, with the
increase of scanning step, for example from 4 to 8 mm, the
calculated flatness value decreases from 99.82 to 55.38%,
which means there are gentle undulations on the coated
surface. As reported in Ref 12, good deposition uniformity
can be achieved by specifying constant velocity motion
with a track gap distance of one standard deviation of the
corrected distribution. The standard deviation of Gaussian
curve used in Table 2 is 3, thus the simulation result is
accordance with the one standard deviation rule of
thumb in Ref 12. The nonlinear relationship between
coating thickness and spray distance is shown in Fig. 8.
Theoretically, the scanning steps are divided into two
zones: zone A and zone B. In zone A, such as the scanning
step changes from 2 to 3 mm in this study, the homogeneity of coated surface keeps prefect. In zone B, the calculated flatness of coated surface decreased obviously,
which means the scanning step values can only be used in
gross tolerance.
The calculated thickness value helps to approximately
estimate the cycle number and scanning step under the
expected coating thickness.
Another experiment was carried out under the same
experimental parameters (gun velocity = 20 mm/s) in
order to check the precision of simulated coating thickness, different scanning steps changing from 2 to 7 mm
were implemented in the experiment.
The measurement on sprayed sample was then performed in order to be compared with the simulated
thickness. Figure 9 shows the profiles of real coating
thickness (blue curves) and simulated coating thickness
(pink curves).

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

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Fig. 9 The difference between real coating thickness and simulated coating thickness

In Fig. 9, the variation between pink curve and blue

curve represents the trivial error between simulated
thickness and real thickness, which is probably caused by
the measurement errors or experimental errors (such as
current fluctuation). The average error between simulated
thickness and real thickness at the scanning step of 2 is
0.06 mm, and at the scanning step of 4 mm, the average
error is lower than 0.09 mm and at the scanning step of 5,
7 mm, the average error is lower than 0.08, 0.05 mm
separately. This confirms that the simulation method and
the simulated result can be accepted with certain tolerance.
TST offers an approximate method to simulate 2D
coating profile consisting of different materials to calculate coating thickness based on different scanning steps,
spray distances, and to provide recommended experimental parameters. It helps to generate the robot trajectory and to determine accuracy coating parameters.

5. Effect of Spray Distance and Scanning

Step on the Coating Profile
Spray distance and scanning step influence significantly
the coating profile in cold spray process. The different spray
distances can cause the variation of 2D coating profile. The
simulation of coating curves in Matlab permits to mathematically analyze this variation. For a given material, there
exists an optimized spray distance with which one can
obtain a high deposition efficiency. The best deposition
efficiency can be obtained by calculating the 2D coating

Journal of Thermal Spray Technology

surfaces under different spray distances. Scanning step is

also an important parameter which influences coating
thickness and coating profile. Two zones exist in the range
of scanning step values: in zone A, the homogeneity of
coating thickness is perfect; and in zone B, the flatness of
coating surface varies obviously, which means the relative
scanning step can only be used in gross tolerance.

6. Conclusions
In this work, a method for simulating coating profile is
applied; 2D coating profile is fitted as Gaussian curve in
Matlab. The relationships between spray distance, scanning step, and coating thickness, deposition efficiency are
described. Based on these researches, a new toolkit integrated in RobotStudio is developed to simulate the 2D
coating profile, coating thickness, and flatness. It permits
to integrate the experimental parameters and results into
inside library in order to build the knowledge basis and
assist users to determine operational parameters. The
proposed methodology is implemented in the cold spray
system, and is also applicable to other spray systems. The
recommended method can be used to fulfill the increasing
requirements for high-accuracy thermal spray process.

References
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Coatings, Wiley, New York, 1995, p 414
2. A. Papyrin, Cold spray Technology, Adv. Mater. Process., 2001,
159, p 49-51

Volume 23(3) February 2014361

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3. A.P. Alkimov, V.F. Kosarev, and A.N. Papyrin, A Method of Cold

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10. S.-H. Suh, I.-K. Woo, S.-K. Woo, and S.-K. Noh, Development of
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Journal of Thermal Spray Technology