Improving wear resistance of aluminium alloys by developing FTC and TiC based composite coatings using plasma powder arc welding process

The aluminium alloys have enormous potentional of weight saving that are drastically gaining importance in the production of transport systems, for example, automobiles, aircraft and aerospace vehicles as well as in production of machines. Owing to the lack of sufficient abrasive wear resistance of aluminium components their application has, so far, been restricted. However, the application range of aluminium components will be extensible through the improvement of the abrasive wear resistance. The main objective of this work is the development of high wear resistant composite coatings on aluminium components by plasma transferred arc (PPA) welding. In this paper the development of the fused tungsten carbide and TiC based composite coatings with a thickness range of a few millimetres is presented. Aluminium alloys are used as matrix material and fused tungsten carbide and TiC are used as hard particles. The weldability of the powder systems with varying welding parameters is examined. The developed coating systems are tested with regard to their specific properties and their wear resistance. Finally, their application potential is presented.