Keywords :
suspension, material, coating, plasma spraying, digital twin, two-phase fluid mechanics, CFD, modeling, simulation, numerical methods, aeronautics
Abstract
Suspension plasma spraying can be used to produce coatings with a variety of fine microstructures to meet the demanding requirements of emerging industrial applications, such as new-generation thermal barriers for the aerospace industry. In this process, the liquid suspension containing submicron particles of the material to be deposited is injected into a thermal plasma jet to be fragmented and evaporated, releasing individual or agglomerated submicron particles which are then accelerated and melted, impacting and spreading out on the part to be coated to form the coating. Mastering the process requires an understanding of the complex, interdependent mechanisms governing suspension processing and coating construction.
This understanding requires simulation of the process as a function of its operating parameters by a digital twin, from plasma jet generation to deposit construction. The IRCER and TREFLE laboratories at I2M have joined forces to make progress on this issue, which is of great interest to Safran, the international leader in the production of coatings for aeronautical parts. This modeling work on plasma jet formation, turbulent development, suspension treatment and deposit construction gave rise to an initial project, which is continuing with support from Safran and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
The work of this PhD will consist of continuing to model the development of the unsteady turbulent plasma jet (LES/U-RANS) in the presence of a moving substrate with the Ansys_Fluent CFD Code, optimizing numerical methods to increase the robustness of simulations and reduce their duration, and modeling the atomization then secondary fragmentation of the suspension jet and its physical treatment in interaction with another PhD student from the project.
