Friction Behavior of High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) Thermal Spray Coating Layer of Nano WC-Co Powder

High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) thermal spray coating of nano size WC-Co powder (nWC-Co) has been studied as one of the most promising candidate for the possible replacement of the traditional hard plating in some area which causes environmental and health problems. nWC-Co powder was coated on Inconel 718 substrates by HVOF technique. The optimal coating process obtained from the best surface properties such as hardness and porosity is the process of oxygen flow rate (FR) 38 FMR, hydrogen FR 57 FMR and feed rate 35 g/min at spray distance 6 inch for both surface temperature $25^{\circ}C\;and\;500^{\circ}C$. In coating process a small portion of hard WC decomposes to less hard $W_2C$, W and C at the temperature higher than its decomposition temperature $1,250^{\circ}C$ resulting in hardness decrease and porosity increase. Friction coefficient increases with increasing coating surface temperature from 0.55-0.64 at $25^{\circ}C$ to 0.65-0.76 at $500^{\circ}C$ due to the increase of adhesion between coating and counter sliding surface. Hardness of nWC-Co is higher or comparable to those of other hard coatings, such as $Al_2O_3,\;Cr,\;Cr_2O_3$ and HVOF Tribaloy 400 (T400). This shows that nWC-Co is recommendable for durability improvement coating on machine components such as high speed spindle.