Surface Coatings: Latest Developments in the Protection of Steels from Corrosion and Erosion

Material conservation has become an important concept due to global competition. One of the major limitations of steel components is their degradation due to corrosion or erosion. It has been identified as a serious problem for many aggressive environment applications, such as gas turbines, hydraulic components, boilers, internal combustion engines, aviation equipment, automotive and mining equipment, chemical process plants, etc. This involves a time-consuming and costly process of replacing the affected components. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that any method for extending the component's life would be of tremendous interest to all engineers, resulting in significant cost savings.

Conventional steels used in aggressive environments are not able to sustain corrosion and erosion problems. Many researchers have tried to minimize the effect of corrosion and erosion with design modifications (such as increasing suction pipe diameters and internal diameters, reducing pipe lengths to reduce pressure drops, reducing flow rates, Improving temperature distribution, avoiding high deposition of ash,  etc.). Some researchers have developed  Fe, Ni, Cr and Co-based alloys for good resistance to erosion, oxidation, corrosion or sulphidation by ash/salt deposits. Significant research work has been done to reduce corrosion and erosion of steel by applying protective coatings. These coatings can be classified into three groups i.e., diffusion coatings, thermal barrier coatings and overlay coatings. There has been an important development in thermal spray technologies, which develops surface coatings with high corrosion and erosion resistance properties.

This Special Issue entitled “Surface coatings: latest developments in the protection of steels from corrosion and erosion” focuses on significant advancements and developments in coating technologies in the protection of steels from corrosion and erosion in different operative environments. This Special Issue intends to cover original research and critical review articles on recent advances in various techniques to combat corrosion and erosion of steels.

The guest-editor of the special issue is Dr. Khushdeep Goyal, Mechanical Engineering Department, Punjabi University, Patiala, India. The special issue is planned for June 2022 and the submission deadline is May 15, 2022. Please select "Steel coatings" under the Section field when submitting articles for this thematic issue.