Wear 255 (2003) 950–955

Communication
An experimental study of the wear performance
of NiCrBSi thermal spray coatings
J. Rodrı́guez a,∗ , A. Martı́n b , R. Fernández c , J.E. Fernández c
a High School of Experimental Sciences and Technology, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Tulipán s/n Móstoles, E28933 Madrid, Spain
b Department of Materials Science, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
c Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Oviedo, E.T.S.I. Industriales, Campus Universitario, s/n, 33203 Gijón, Spain

Abstract
The increasingly extreme conditions in which components are required to work have led to the use of thermal coatings in a lot of
industrial applications. Special attention has been paid in NiCrBSi alloys since they provide a high wear and corrosion resistance at high
temperatures. In this communication, an experimental programme has been carried out to analyse the influence of several factors such
as load, temperature, presence of reinforcement particles and the type of thermal spray technique on the wear behaviour of a NiCrBSi
alloy.
Specimens were tested in a reciprocating pin on plate wear machine able to select loads ranging from 50 to 200 N and temperatures up
to 500 ◦ C. Four sets of specimens were tested varying the composition (with the presence or not of WC in the powders) and the type of
thermal spraying technique (plasma or flame + fusion).
A statistical analysis based on the design of experiments methodology was applied to identify the main significative effects and
interactions.
© 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: NiCrBSi alloy; Thermal coatings; Wear behaviour

1. Introduction corrosion resistant coatings. Plasma spray is suitable for hard

The demands on performance and lifetime of parts are
continuously increasing. As a consequence of the tribo-
logical requirements of thermally spray coatings for wear
resistant applications, coating technologies have advanced
a lot during the last decades. Thermal spraying is one of the
most versatile process of deposition of coating materials to
enhance the wear and corrosion performances [1,2]. It is a
process with almost no limitation of materials and with the
ability to deposit coatings with thicknesses ranging from
several micrometers to tens of millimetres. Additionally, it
is suitable for a great variety of shapes and sizes and had
the advantage of maintaining the substrate temperature rel-
atively low. There are a lot of techniques to melt and propel
the coating material. Among the most commonly applied
are flame spraying and plasma spraying. The flame sprayed
coatings exhibit a high porosity and a bad bonding strength
in comparison to other thermal spraying process. Thus,
sometimes the coating is subjected to a process of subse-
quent fusion. Flame spraying is widely used in industry for
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-1-488-7159.
E-mail address: j.rodriguez@escet.urjc.es (J. Rodrı́guez).
and thick coatings and it is used in applications requiring
wear and corrosion resistant surfaces. The NiCrBSi alloys,
subject of this study, present a high bonding strength and ex-
cellent resistance to adhesive and abrasive wear at elevated
temperatures. Usual applications are, for example, piston
rings or rollers in steel making. (The industrial way to mea-
sure wear losses in these components is hardly compared
to laboratory tests, but as example 5 mg/h is an acceptable
wear rate for piston rings. The wear of rollers is traditionally
counted as millimetres loss per ton of steel rolled.) An-
other remarkable aspects is the possibility of including very
hard components such as WC in the powders to get harder
coatings.
In this communication, an experimental programme
has been carried out to analyse the influence on the wear
behaviour of several factors such as load, temperature,
presence of tungsten carbide in the powders and the type
of thermal spray technique used (only plasma spraying
and flame spraying with subsequent fusion were consid-
ered). The experimental data are analysed following the
design of experiments methodology, with the aim of find-
ing the main effect of the factors studied and their interac-
tions.

0043-1648/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0043-1648(03)00162-5
 J. Rodrı́guez et al. / Wear 255 (2003) 950–955 951

Table 1
Coating characteristics
Flame spray Plasma spray Substrate

Roughness, Ra (␮m) 20–30 (sprayed) 15–25

Roughness, Ra (␮m) 2–4 (fused)
Macrohardness Rc60 (HV700) Rc50–55 (HV520–600) HV200 (before coating) HV170 (after coating)
Thickness (␮m) 300–500 300–500

Fig. 1. Scheme of the experimental device.

2. Experiments of specimens were prepared with the same steel substrate:

2.1. Materials and thermal spraying processes
The specimens studied in this work were in the form
of 30 mm × 9 mm × 6 mm rectangular pieces. Two groups
a carbon steel (SAE 1045) with the nominal composition
C, 0.15%; Mn, 0.55%; Si, 0.27%; P, 0.035% maximum; S,
0.035% maximum; and Fe, balance. In the first group the
specimens were coated with a Ni-based alloy with spray
powders CASTOLIN CPS 1235 (Cr, 15.2%; Fe, 3.6%; Si,

Fig. 2. Effects of the factors analysed on the wear of NiCrBSi coating.

952 J. Rodrı́guez et al. / Wear 255 (2003) 950–955

Table 2
Factorial design 24 and experimental results
T L R P Test Alumina NiCrBSi
cylinder coating
mass loss mass loss
(×10−6 g/s) (×10−6 g/s)
1 − − − − 1 1.47 1.79 0.016 0.010
2 + − − − T 1.19 1.28 −0.022 −0.003
3 − + − − L 5.39 2.88 0.015 0.003
4 + + − − TL 4.83 4.91 −0.001 −0.006
5 − − + − R 2.07 2.55 0.162 0.304
6 + − + − TR 4.03 4.15 0.360 0.372
7 − + + − LR 4.86 4.34 0.077 0.784
8 + + + − TLR 11.4 7.36 1.780 0.890
9 − − − + P 6.95 5.55 0.021 0.013
10 + − − + TP 6.27 6.36 −0.001 −0.007
11 − + − + LP 13.35 16.31 0.173 0.129
12 + + − + TLP 10.76 10.86 −0.028 −0.014
13 − − + + RP 4.38 5.18 0.094 0.167 Fig. 3. Micrograph of a plasma sprayed coating.
14 + − + + TRP 8.30 8.00 0.351 0.290
15 − + + + LRP 15.90 14.10 0.500 0.469 experimental set-up is not described here for the sake of
16 + + + + TLRP 14.98 15.33 0.606 0.577
brevity, but it is given in previous publications [4] and a
scheme is shown in Fig. 1. The alumina counterbodies were
gripped to avoid rolling during the test. The average sliding
4%; B, 3.1%; C, 0.6%; Ni, balance). The second group of speed was kept constant at 0.15 m/s (trapezoidal profile) for
specimens used the spray powders METCO 36C (WC, 35%; all the specimens and test conditions. The test temperature
Cr, 11%; Fe, 2.5%; Si, 2.5%; B, 2.5%; C, 2.5%; Ni balance). was modified by a heating block located below the specimen
The two alloys are very similar, except for the presence of and the temperature was monitored with a thermocouple
tungsten carbide in the composition of the METCO 36C placed inside the specimen, in a drill hole made just below
powders. the contact zone. The true contact temperature (flash tem-
Two thermal spray processes were analysed: plasma spray perature) is not considered in this work. Although it may be
and flame spray plus fusion. Before spraying, the specimens relevant to the wear behaviour of the coating, its influence is
were cleaned, degreased and surface finished. The parame- reduced at low sliding speeds (0.15 m/s in the present case).
ters which control the plasma spray process were: current, During the test nothing was done to clear the debris
400 A; voltage, 75–80 V; spray distance, 100–150 mm; feed from the wear track. After finishing the test, the specimens
rate, 75 g/min. The main parameters associated with the were removed from the machine, cleaned by ultrasound
flame spray process were: oxygen pressure 170 kPa; acety- in acetone, and weighed in an electronic balance with a
lene pressure 100 kPa; oxygen flow 1.7 m3 /h; acetylene flow resolution of 0.01 mg to measure the mass loss. The same
0.93 m3 /h; spray distance 175–200 mm; feed rate 9.1 kg/h. process was applied to the counterbodies. Preliminary tests
After spraying the coated material were fused at 1025 ◦ C, had shown that 1000 m is a sufficient sliding distance to
showing the characteristics of Table 1. reach a steady-state regime for the wear rate.
The METCO 36C powders, with WC, showed the same
values of roughness and macrohardness than CASTOLIN
CPS 1235 powders, without WC. The only appreciable dif-
ference is the microhardness of the WC particles (2000 HV).

2.2. Wear tests

Wear tests were carried out by rubbing a 99.5% pure

alumina cylinder (hardness knoop 100 g, 2300) of 6 mm
diameter and 15 mm length (roughness, Ra < 0.05 mm),
against the specimen surface in an oscillating friction ma-
chine (Cameron Plint TE77) with the axis of the cylinder
perpendicular to the sliding direction. Configuration is sim-
ilar to ASTM G 133-95 [3], but several parameters were
changed: normal force between 50 and 200 N; stroke length
15 mm; oscillating frequency 5 Hz; sliding distance 1000 m;
temperature 20 and 500 ◦ C; lubrication not applied. The Fig. 4. Micrograph of a flame sprayed coating.
 J. Rodrı́guez et al. / Wear 255 (2003) 950–955 953

Fig. 5. Effects of the factors analysed on wear of the alumina cylinder.

Fig. 6. Thermally spray NiCrBSi specimen tested at room temperature.

954 J. Rodrı́guez et al. / Wear 255 (2003) 950–955
Fig. 7. Thermally spray NiCrBSi specimen tested at 500 ◦ C.
3. Results and discussion
Experimental data were statistically analysed using a 24
factorial design [5]. The factors studied were: load, repre-
sented by L, with high level 200 N (+) and low level 50 N
(−); bulk temperature, represented by T, with high level
500 ◦ C (+) and low level 20 ◦ C (−); presence of WC in the
powders, represented by R, and high level with WC (+) and
low level without WC (−); and finally, technique of spray-
ing, represented by P, and high level associated with plasma
spraying (+) and low level associated with flame spraying
(−). The results of mass loss by the specimens and counter-
bodies were included in Table 2. To increase the precision
of the experiment, duplicate observations for each test con-
figuration were performed.
Fig. 2 shows the effects of each factor and combination
of factors on the NiCrBSi coating. Those whose effects
were lower than an estimation of the experimental variability
should not be considered as statistically significant. As it can
be appreciated in Fig. 2, the thermal spraying technique and
the load were the most influential factors on the specimen
wear. The different wear performance of plasma and flame
sprayed specimens lies in microstructural aspects. Fig. 3
shows a micrograph of a plasma sprayed coating where can
be appreciated how a considerable number of projected par-
ticles present a boundary clearly defined, probably due to
oxidation during the spraying process. These particles will
be detached from the specimen easier than other zones of
the coating, increasing consequently the wear rate. This sit-
uation is not observed in the flame sprayed coatings (Fig. 4).
The effects of the other two main factors, temperature
and presence of WC, are much lower, even with less in-
fluence than effects associated with the interaction between
load and technique, or temperature and presence of WC. It
is remarkable how temperature is not an important factor in
the range analysed, confirming the idea that NiCrBSi alloys
have the ability of maintain their wear resistant properties at
elevated temperatures. Another interesting aspect is the role
of the WC inside the powders. The tungsten carbide parti-
cles, formed during the spraying process, are not beneficial
at all, greatly increasing the mass loss of the counterbodies
during the tests, while no significant enhancement is pro-
vided on the specimen wear resistance. Probably, this lack
of enhancement is due to a weak joint between particles and
matrix which makes easy to pull out the WC reinforcement.
Fig. 5 shows how the presence of WC is the main factor af-
fecting the counterbody wear. Finally, Figs. 6 and 7 include
tests performed at intermediate levels of load as estimation
of the non-linear effects within the range analysed.
4. Conclusions
From the experiments and analyses performed, some con-
clusions can be drawn:
(1) NiCrBSi alloys, deposited by thermally spray tech-
niques, maintain their wear resistant performances up
to bulk temperatures of 500 ◦ C.
(2) The spraying technique is a very significant factor in
the wear behaviour of the NiCrBSi alloys. The alloys
 J. Rodrı́guez et al. / Wear 255 (2003) 950–955
deposited by flame spraying with fusion have better wear
resistance than those deposited by plasma spraying.
(3) Load is much more influential than temperature within
the ranges analysed.
(4) The presence of tungsten carbide in the powders is not a
beneficial factor on the wear performance of thermally
spray NiCrBSi coatings.
Acknowledgements
This investigation was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia
y Tecnologı́a, Spain, through grants MAT2001-3528-C01
and MAT2001-3528-C03.
955
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