Aerospace coatings are being applied in increasing numbers to aircraft engine components, and Plasma Coatings Ltd provides aerospace coatings solutions as its core business. With airlines ever seeking improved efficiency and reduced maintenance downtime, aerospace coatings are proving ever more key in satisfying the end-users requirements.
Aerospace coatings cover a wide range of applications such as extending component life against wear; thermal barriers to reduce material operating temperatures, and abradable coatings to improve engine running efficiency and consequently – fuel consumption.
Plasma Coatings Ltd. has built up an established business providing aerospace coatings for a wide range of predominantly Rolls Royce engines.
Depending upon the application, aerospace coatings will vary by ingredients and by the process by which they are applied. Wear resistant coatings are usually of the carbide or ceramic oxide families; thermal barriers of the zirconium / magnesium or alumina, and the abradable coatings anywhere from nickel graphite to aluminium polyesters. The above is by no means an exhaustive list!
The majority of the aerospace coatings are applied by plasma deposition – a high thermal energy process that plasticise small grains of powder-based raw material and deposits them kinetically onto a prepared substrate.
To a lesser degree, an oxy/acetylene flame is used to melt wire-based raw material and compressed air is used to propel the material against the component to be coated.
H.V.O.F (High Velocity Oxy Fuel) is, as the name suggests, a high velocity flame that again heats the powder based raw material and propels it at exceptionally high speed, thus producing extremely dense coatings.
Of course, each process and each coating has its own unique characteristics and as a result, an abundance of applications are feasible.
In line with material advances, the desire to be ‘greener’ and the customers’ life expectations of its engines, aerospace coatings are being increasingly utilised as cost effective solutions to the various requirements involved.
Plasma Coatings Ltd. are a proven and trusted key provider of these solutions.
