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Application of Flame-Sprayed Coatings as Heating Elements for Polymer-Based Composite Structures

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Abstract

Flame-sprayed nickel-chromium-aluminum-yttrium (NiCrAlY) and nickel-chromium (NiCr) coatings were deposited on fiber-reinforced polymer composites for use as heating elements of structures that were exposed to cold environments. Electrical current was applied to the coatings to increase the surface temperature by way of Joule heating. The surface temperature profiles of the coatings were measured under free and forced convection conditions at different ambient temperatures, ranging from −25 to 23 °C. It was found that at ambient air temperatures below 0 °C, the surface temperature of the coating remained above 0 °C for both the forced and free convection conditions, and there was a nearly homogeneous temperature distribution over the coating surface. This suggests that flame-sprayed coatings could be used as heating elements to mitigate ice accretion on structures, without the presence of areas of localized high temperature.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Advanced Composite Materials Engineering Group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta for fabrication of the FRPC plate substrates. The authors acknowledge financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Government of Alberta Small Equipment Grants Program (SEGP), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, 10-230 DICE, 9211 - 116 Street NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada

    Adrián Lopera-Valle & André McDonald

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  1. Adrián Lopera-Valle
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  2. André McDonald
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Correspondence to André McDonald.

Additional information

This article is an invited paper selected from presentations at the 2015 International Thermal Spray Conference, held May 11-14, 2015, in Long Beach, California, USA, and has been expanded from the original presentation.

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Lopera-Valle, A., McDonald, A. Application of Flame-Sprayed Coatings as Heating Elements for Polymer-Based Composite Structures. J Therm Spray Tech 24, 1289–1301 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-015-0302-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-015-0302-7

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