ACOUSTIC EMISSION ANALYSIS FOR CONTINUOUS MONITORING OF THERMAL SPRAY PROCESSES

The proposed feasbility study is to lay the ground for the development of a novel on-line, non-destructive

monitoring technology for the low temperature thermal spray processes based on the acoustic emission (AE)

during the coatings. The key objectives are: identification of the elements in the AE of the thermal spray

process that contain information about the coating quality; continuous on-line monitoring of the coating

process so that deviations from the optimum spraying conditions can be detected early and corrected

promptly; greatly reducing product rejections and re-coating compared to the inadequate post-spray quality

check.