Experimental Study of Cold Sprayed Metallic Coatings on Thermoplastic Matrix Composites

In this research activity, the manufacturing of metallic coatings on polymer-based panels through the low pressure cold spray technique was studied. Aluminium particles were sprayed for the metallization and carbon fibre composite materials with thermoplastic matrix (PP, PA66) were used as substrates. Different deposition parameter combinations have been set to investigate the feasibility of the process; SEM analyses were carried out to study the coating surface morphology and the interface interaction between particle and substrate. The results showed that the CS process is an effective technique to create aluminium coatings on polymeric matrix composite materials: compact coatings can be obtained if the process parameters are properly set.