APPLICATIONS OF PLASMA SPRAYING IN HARDFACING.

This article describes some major applications carried out at the Central Research Laboratories of The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, in which the plasma spray techique has been used to successfully apply hardface coatings to a wide variety of components. Service life of the sprayed parts has been substantially increased resulting in less equipment downtime and in some cases improved performance. This has allowed improved scheduled maintenance programmes to be introduced in some areas, resulting in reduced production time loss and reduced maintenance costs. Some advantages of the plasma spray process are noted.