Coatings are used extensive to improve tribological performance in terms of wear resistance and/or friction reduction. Tribological coatings can be soft, such as the polymeric coating for erosion application on helicopter blades and wind turbine blades, to super-hard coatings made from diamond or boron carbide for downhole applications.
Coatings are also used to improve corrosion resistance, a classic example is the galvanising of steel structures. Corrosion coatings can be metallic coatings, either dipped, sprayed or electroplated, but can also be polymeric and this can be explored further polymers coating section .
Coatings development is an on-going process as systems are being used in harsher and harsher environments for longer and longer periods, thus the assessment of coating properties and the resistance to wear and corrosion is important tool.
nCATS facility has a range of tribometers that can perform tests on a coated samples from sliding wear to erosion-resistance. Nano-scale measurements (Nano page) can be performed with the MicroMaterial Vantage systems and Agilent AFM 5500 . While corrosion resistance can be explored with the CCT chamber and seawater immersions are NOC (NOC page).
nCATS Facility – coating assessment equipment includes:
- Atomic Force Microscopy (Agilent 5500)
- Cavitation erosion rig
- Cyclic Corrosion Test (CCT) Chamber
- Electrochemical equipment
- High velocity air-sand erosion
- High-velocity Impact Rig
- µ-abrasion (Plint TE66)
- Multi-station wear rig
- Mini Traction Machine (MTM)
- NOC immersion
- Pin on Disc
- Polymer Coating Tools
- Reciprocating (Plint TE77)
- Slurry jet erosion