Surface Engineering & Solid-State Additive Repair

Thermal Spray & Cold Spray (CSAM) Masking & Additive Deposition Calculator

Engineering preflight calculator for High-Velocity Oxygen-Fuel (HVOF), Plasma Spray, and Supersonic Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM). Computes single-pass build thickness, total pass count, shadow mask edge chamfer angles, robot raster stepover, and overtravel toolpath margins.

1. Input Parameters

Total required buildup thickness (µm)

2. Calculation Results

Pass Buildup Thickness
-- µm / pass
Total Spray Passes
-- Passes
Mask Edge Chamfer Angle
-- °
Robot Stepover Pitch
-- mm (60% Overlap)
Overtravel Vector Margin
-- mm
Spot Plume Diameter
-- mm

3. Geometric Visualizer

Tooling & Vector Prepress Engineering Notes

Supersonic Cold Spray & Thermal Spray Physics: Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) accelerates micron-sized powder particles ($15-45\,\mu\text{m}$) through a de Laval converging-diverging nozzle to supersonic velocities ($600-1,100\text{ m/s}$) using heated nitrogen or helium carrier gas. Upon impact, extreme kinetic energy induces adiabatic shear instability (ASI), forming solid-state metallurgical bonds without melting, phase change, or thermal distortion.

Shadow Mask Edge Taper & Shadowing Prevention: When applying localized coatings or additive repairs to precise zones, reusable hardened metallic shadow masks shield adjacent critical features. To prevent abnormal edge buildup and coating bridging, the mask aperture vector profiles must incorporate a $20^\circ - 30^\circ$ chamfered relief taper pointing outward away from the substrate.

Robotic Raster Overtravel Vector Toolpaths: Because spray gun deposition profiles follow Gaussian intensity distributions, robotic CAM vector paths must program linear lead-in and lead-out overtravel moves ($L_{\text{overtravel}} \ge 1.5 \times \text{spot diameter}$) beyond the masked aperture to ensure 100% coating thickness uniformity across the component surface.