Deposition on steel mechanical parts and sintering by microwave heating of ceramic-metal composite powders

Description

The research subject of the thesis consists in developing the technologies of additive deposition of ceramic-metal composite powders and their thermal treatment by microwave heating on mechanical steel parts. The objective is to obtain a “thick” cermet coating, i.e. several hundred micrometers thick, whose high mechanical properties (hardness and modulus of elasticity) coupled with a strong adhesion will allow to substantially increase the wear resistance of mechanical components. The ceramic-metal composite being considered will be made of cobalt (metal) and tungsten carbide WC (ceramic). WC is a very high hardness material commonly used in hard coatings obtained by conventional technologies such as cold plasma or PVD. The originality of the present research topic lies in the innovative character of the technologies used, in particular the thermal treatment by microwave heating which is unfairly considered as being incompatible with metallic parts. Microwave heating has an important economic interest because this technology is much less energy-consuming than the classical hot plasma technologies but also does not require vacuum techniques like the PVD methods.