Feasibility of numerical simulation methods on the Cold Gas Dynamic Spray (CGDS) Deposition process for ductile materials

The techniques of cold gas dynamic spray (CGDS) coating involve the deposition of solid, high speed micron to nano particles onto a substrate. In contrast to a thermal spray, CGDS does not melt particles to retain their physico-chemical properties. There have been many advantages in developing microscopic analysis of deformation mechanisms with numerical simulation methods. Therefore, this study focuses on four cardinal numerical methods of analysis which are: Lagrangian, Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics (SPH), Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE), and Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) to examine the Cold Gas Dynamic Spray (CGDS) deposition system by simulating and analyzing the contact/impact problem at deformation zone using ductile materials. The details of these four numerical approaches are explained with some aspects of analysis procedure, model description, material model, boundary conditions, contact algorithm and mesh refinement. It can be observed that the material of the particle greatly influences the deposition and the deformation than the material of the substrate. Concerning the particle, a higher-density material such as Cu has a higher initial kinetic energy, which leads to a larger contact area, a longer contact time and, therefore, better bonding between the particle and the substrate. All the numerical methods studied, however, can be used to analyze the contact/impact problem at deformation zone during cold gas dynamic spray process.