Statistical Analysis of Microhardness Variations in Plasma Sprayed $Cr_3C_2-NiCr$ Coatings

The microstructure and properties of plasma-sprayed coatings depend on a great number of spraying parameters, random factors, which lead to vibration in these spraying parameters, may in some degree influence the microstructure and properties of the coatings. Therefore, the property values appear certain distributions, and the description and comparison of the properties of plasma-sprayed coatings should be performed employing statistical analysis. In this paper, $Cr_3C_2$-Nicr coatings of different thickness were sprayed onto stainless steel using atmosphere plasma system and adopting three kinds of gun translation speeds. Then the microhardness measurements were performed on polished surface of the coatings. Forty readings were taken and statistically analyzed by calculating the characteristic values, estimating and comparing the means, and assessing whether they belonged to the Normal or Weibull Distribution. This study has found that statistical analysis could discriminate influence of spraying parameters and coating design on microhardness of the $Cr_3C_2$-Nicr coatings from random vibration, which showed that the microharness of the $Cr_3C_2$-Nicr coatings were related to gun translation speed coating thickness.