Fracture behavior characteristic of ceramic reinforced metal-base coatings

The fracture behavior of a ceramic reinforced metal-base coating prepared by high velocity arc spraying (HVAS) technology in three-point bending test was studied. Moreover, finite element analysis (FEA) was adopted to analyze the stress distribution in the crack front. It can be found that the crack normal to the interface in the coatings occurred at the location where a fixed moment of force was reached. So the critical moment can be taken as the coating cracking criterion, which was confirmed by FEA results. In addition, the stress levels at three different locations where cracks occurred near the interface are almost the same. The results will provide reference for the design of coatings and the structure integrity evaluation of coating/substrate systems. © Tianjin University and Springer-Verlag 2009.