Thermal Spray of UV/Visible Light-Curable Polymide Powders

The proposed innovative method for spraying UV-curable powders answers a critical NASA need for advanced coatings, and capitalizes on exciting commercial market opportunities. The technology employed combines UV/visible radiation with proprietary thermal spray processing methods yields an effective spray coating system for applying UV-curable powders without the use of solvents. The spray process and the lay-up aspects of the powder spray technology address a NASA mandate for producing Advanced Materials with Reduced Emissions. The advanced materials processed with this technology have application in gas turbines, rocket and turbine-based combined cycle engines. The technology enables efficient high quality application of these advanced materials to fabricate lightweight jet engine components and other critical NASA and commercial equipment components. The Phase I technical objectives were fully achieved by demonstrating feasibility of the novel UV/thermal spray technology to coat surfaces using advanced NASA UV-curable polyimide and various commercial UV-curable polymers. This was demonstrated for powder coating conventional materials, heat-sensitive and low-temperature substrates that included metal, glass, natural wood, paper and plastic. The Phase II technical objective is to develop, fabricate and demonstrate a field portable prototype system. Phase II and Phase III matching resource commitments from the private sector of $680,000 have been obtained.