Sliding Wear of Conventional and Suspension Sprayed Nanocomposite WC-Co Coatings: An Invited Review

The global thermal spray coatings market was valued at USD 10.1 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.9% from 2020 to 2027. Carbide coatings form an essential segment of this market and provide cost-effective and environmental friendly tribological solutions for applications in aerospace, industrial gas turbine, automotive, printing, oil and gas, steel, and pulp and paper industries. Almost 23% of the world's total energy consumption originates from tribological contacts. Thermal spray WC-Co coatings provide excellent wear resistance for industrial applications in sliding and rolling contacts. Some of these applications in abrasive, sliding and erosive conditions include sink rolls in zinc pots, conveyor screws, pump housings, impeller shafts, aircraft flap tracks, cam followers and expansion joints. These coatings are considered as a replacement of the hazardous chrome plating for tribological applications. The microstructure of thermal spray coatings is however complex, and the wear mechanisms and wear rates vary significantly when compared to cemented WC-Co carbides or vapour deposition WC coatings. This paper provides an expert review of the tribological considerations that dictate the sliding wear performance of thermal spray WC-Co coatings. Structure-property relationships and failure modes are discussed to grasp the design aspects of WC-Co coatings for tribological applications. Recent developments of suspension sprayed nanocomposite coatings are compared with conventional coatings in terms of performance and failure mechanisms. The dependency of coating microstructure, binder material, carbide size, fracture toughness, post-treatment and hardness on sliding wear performance and test methodology is discussed. Semiempirical mathematical models of wear rate related to the influence of tribological test conditions and coating characteristics are analysed for sliding contacts. Finally, advances for numerical modelling of sliding wear rate are discussed.