A spherical surface coating thickness model for a robotized thermal spray system

Coating thickness prediction is critical for robotic thermal spray system's tool-path planning. Current prediction models could not give accurate estimation for a type of important spherical coating surfaces in industrial application. To facilitate tool-path generation and improve the coating quality for this special surface shape, this paper proposes a new analytical thickness prediction model. Both numerical simulation and experimental testing are conducted. The results reveal that the model is flexible and efficient to predict the coating thickness and uniformity in acceptable tolerance and expedient to predict the coating thickness on non-holonomic spherical surfaces. It could be used for automatic tool-path generation for the robotic thermal spray system.