VALIMET, Inc. is a family-owned business that has been atomizing Aluminum based powders for over 50 years. VALIMET supplies a large variety of Industries: Defense, Electronics, Aerospace, Refractories. Their plant is located in Northern California, surrounded by a big orchard. VALIMET dares to say that there are similarities between growing trees and growing a Library: The value of the collection increases in time; a wise selection of items is essential. As Aby Warburg used to say, “the key criterion to order books in a Library is that of good neighbors”. Any garden designer would agree with that mindset, which is the same followed in their website’s Literature page.
VALIMET encourages the Cold Spray Community to check the updates in the short-list of articles presented. VALIMET has long term relationships with several Universities around the world and contributes to studies on a large variety of topics related to Surface Technologies:
Studies by Florida International University focus on the characterization of cold sprayed powders in terms of Failure Mechanisms, Corrosion Resistance, Mechanical and Tribological improvements obtained by nano-diamond addition.
We present a paper by McGill University, comparing various materials with regards to corrosion and lightning strike protection.
Micro and nanostructures of cold sprayed AlCu alloy powders are studied by University of Alabama in a paper dated 2018. We also listed a study on Fatigue Behavior of Aluminum alloys by the same research team.
Politecnico di Milano has run intensive studies to characterize Mechanical with specific focus on Fatigue performance of cold spray deposits, using in particular residual stresses measurements.
The same approach has been followed by Universita’ di Padova and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy, with focus on corrosion resistance.
Fatigue cracks growth is investigated by a Worcester Polytechnic Institute team, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. In a paper dated 2020, they discussed a key topic: can bulk material properties serve as substitutes for gas-atomized powder property input parameters for cold spray process simulation? The answer is no – grains size and secondary phases discrepancies between cast and powder version of several alloys cause discrepancies in mechanical behavior.
The University of Connecticut published an interesting contribution on the effect of surface oxides formed on powder feedstocks used for cold spray. The effect of heat treatment of gas atomized powders is discussed, in terms of oxide layer thickness and its impact on the metallurgical bond between the substrate and the cold sprayed particles.
Heat treatment of Gas-atomized Al alloys was also investigated by the University of Nottingham in collaboration with TWI Ltd. Again, the focus was on the improvement of the particle-substrate bonding, as the heat treatment increased the deformability of the powder particles.
The Sandia National Laboratories, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and Ktech Corp. have published two studies showing benefits from annealing gas atomized pure Aluminum powders.
The Republic of Singapore Air Force and ECK Pte Ltd characterized the cold sprayed layers in repair applications, with special focus on Corrosion and Wear Resistance.
If your research involves the use of VALIMET powders, they would like to hear from you. Who knows, maybe you’ll make the VALIMET publication list!