In surface technology, technical surfaces of i.a. machines or components of machines are to be protected against destructive influences such as abrasion, adhesion, corrosion (due to oxidation) and material fatigue that wear the component.

Protection (among other protective processes) consists in the treatment of these surfaces by applying thick, foreign material layers to the component. If these protective layers are applied by melting, the thermal spraying processes are used as coating technologies.

In thermal spraying, spray materials such as powders or wires are thermally heated and melted or even just melted. The resulting molten particles are accelerated by a gas flow in the direction of the component to be coated. The molten droplets reach the component at a more or less high speed. The spray materials melt and/or burst on the surface to be coated, solidifying in a cooling manner, interlocking with one another and thus forming the protective layer.

ELMA-Tech currently offers efficient know-how in the form of hardware and software components for two thermal spraying processes, namely arc wire spraying (with wire-shaped spraying materials) and plasma coating (with powder-shaped spraying materials):

• Stationary AC / DC high-performance power sources
• Mobile arc wire spraying systems
• Process control of the spraying process

The ELMA-Tech process control system used in conjunction with the high-performance power sources allows a maximum of flexible, fully customizable control of spraying processes.

Image use with kind permission (Copyright: Gebr. Heller Maschinenfabrik GmbH, Nürtingen).