Identification of business cases for HVAFtechnology

Abstract: Swerea KIMAB has invested in a new and improved thermal spray technique, High Velocity Air-Fuel (HVAF). This has recently been introduced to the market given that the technical properties, costs and performance of the technique is still not thoroughly investigated and covered. An examination of these areas was therefore necessary to examine appropriate uses for the new technology. The investigation aimed to indicate how the new technology compares with established technologies in some areas in terms of performance and cost but also if there are any entirely new applications that the technology enables. In addition, there is also considerable uncertainty what the market for the new technology looks like today, and what it can be developed into. The market of thermal spraying is limited today. This entails that there is a great interest to investigate the preferences and equirements companies have to consider when choosing this new technology in favour of an ld one. It is also of great interest to investigate what skills and support companies’ requests in order to venture into this new technology. The aim with the work was to answer two research questions What are possible business cases for the HVAF technology from a technical as well as an economical point of view? What initiatives are necessary to get more companies and applications into the thermal spray business? The methods used for the master thesis were empirical studies, benchmarking, interviews, a survey and logical discussions. The report presents an overall knowledge bank for the most commonly used thermal spray technologies, compared with regards to characteristics and cost. As a result of the new features that the HVAF technology offers suitable application areas for the technology were identified through the work, such as high temperature corrosion protection. As a result of the survey the work also identified the general lack of knowledge about thermal spraying as the main obstacle to get more companies into using the technology.