Cold Spray Repair Process Development and Implementation on Navy Components

US Navy vessels and their components and equipment experience severe environmental conditions, leading to a level of unacceptable corrosion through a combination of sea water exposure, heat, humidity, UV exposure, and general inaccessibility for continual maintenance. Copper brush electroplating is the standard repair technique for many Navy corrosion repair applications, however this process is plagued by long buildup times and use of hazardous substances. Cold spray offers a viable opportunity to replace copper brush electroplating for many repair applications. During the process, the metal particles never reach melting temperatures, but are fused through kinetic energy transfer and adiabatic shearing processes, therefore substrate heating is minimized and dimensional stability is maintained. Cold spray deposited metals exhibit exceptional mechanical properties, where grain size and structure can generally be maintained from the powdered state to the as deposited condition. VRC Metal Systems has consistently demonstrated cold spray materials with extremely low porosity (less than 0.5%) with copper, bronze, aluminum, titanium, steel, stainless steel, and nickel approaching base metal properties. In this phase II effort, VRC Metal Systems proposes a continuation of the design and build a ruggedized cold spray system, along with engineering controls systems and repair certification and approval processes.