Technical Challenge
Coatings are often applied to structural hardware for thermal and environmental protection. In applications such as aircraft engines, high-pressure valves, and gas plumbing, coatings undergo high-velocity impact by environmental debris, which can delaminate coatings and limit their
protection. Coating delamination depends on a wide range of factors, including the relative hardnesses of the debris and the coating, the interfacial bond strength between the coating and the substrate, and impact parameters including angle and velocity.
Veryst Solution
By assessing various impact conditions, we can predict the severity of coating delamination and inform design to extend coating life. Veryst used finite element analysis (FEA) to simulate impact of a hard particle on a coated metal component. An example result is shown in Figure 1, which demonstrates that particle impact causes plastic deformation and delamination of the coating.
Figure 2 illustrates regions of coating delamination for a range of impact angles. With perpendicular impact (90°), the delaminated region is relatively large and is axially symmetric about the impact site. As impact angle decreases (with the magnitude of velocity fixed), the delaminated region moves in the positive x-direction due to the increasing transverse velocity component. And as shown in Figure 3, decreasing impact angle also decreases the size of the delaminated region as the normal component of velocity decreases.
