Evaluation of the Shearing Strength of a WC-12Co Thermal Spray Coating by the Scraping Test Method

This paper reports on an experimental and analytical investigation conducted into efficacy of the scraping shear-test method in estimating the shearing adhesive strength of a thermally sprayed coating. It was found that the critical average shear stress, the apparent failure strength of WC-Co thermal spray coating, depends on both the dimensions of the test piece and the loading position around the interface between the coating and the substrate. More specifically, the apparent critical shear stress decreased as the height and width of the test piece increased. In addition, the apparent critical shear stress increased with increasing coating thickness and with decreasing loading point distance measured from the interface. Consequently, the real adhesive strength of thermally sprayed coating could not be ascertained from these experimental results. Furthermore, most of the failure initiation points were inside the coating, as opposed to at the interface. This fact means that the results of the tests do not indicate the interfacial adhesive strength, but rather the shear strength of the coating. Three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) analysis showed that the distributions of the shearing stress at the loading points were virtually the same at failure, regardless of the dimensions of the test piece. These results suggest that the scraping test method needs a corresponding numerical analysis of the failure mode in order to produce reliable results and is not necessarily able to estimate the interfacial adhesive strength of thermally sprayed coating