Studying the Effect of the Air-Cap Configuration in Twin-Wire Arc-Spraying Process on the Obtained Flow Characteristics Using Design of Experiment Oriented Fluid Simulation

The computational fluid dynamics approach is adopted in this work using the design of experiments to reveal the effect of the air-cap configurations on the obtained gas velocity, the shear stresses, the high velocity zone, and the convergence of the obtained spraying plume in the twin-wire arc-spraying process. The parameters, which are revealed to optimize the air-cap configuration, are the throat diameter, the convergence angle of the throat inlet, the throat length, and the distance between the throat outlet and the intersection point of the approaching wires. The throat length is dependent upon the other configuration parameters. Outlet gas velocity, the turbulence in the flow, and the exerted shear stresses at wire tips are directly affected by the dominating flow regimes near the intersection point of the approaching wires. The presence of wires and the contact tips in the gas flow has enormous impact on the obtained flow characteristics. Air-cap throat diameter and the distance between throat outlet and intersection point determine the shape and length of the obtained high velocity zone in the spraying plum.