APS Materials Leading the Way

APS Materials is a company that excels in aerospace coating. With 35 years of experience, APS Materials has been serving companies with our thermal spray coating solutions longer than anyone else in the business. We are so trusted because we hold our products to the highest of standards. As a result, we are certified by NADCAP and AS 9000 and are a trusted and utilized brand by big, high profile names, such as General Electric, Rolls Royce, and Pratt & Whitney. Our plasma coating offers higher tensile strengths, improved corrosion resistance, and better wear properties than any other company and any other method.

Our aircraft and jet turbine components work with General Electric Airline Engine Group due to our exorbitantly high standards. Because we demand so much of our products, we are one of the only approved suppliers for GE. In our land based turbine market, we provide a complete line of spray coatings required by the gas turbine industries. The cost of replacing the components is so much higher than the plasma coating or the thermal spray, so our options are a wise and cost effective business decision.

The founders of APS Materials were a group that believed in expanding the aerospace coating technology into the OEM marketplace, resulting in many Research and Development programs in companies such as Rocketdyne and Aerojet Corp. Marquardt, and in government agencies such as NASA, DOD, and DOE. As a result, APS is now a leader in the industry.

The arc plasma process starts out with an inert gas, such as nitrogen, helium, or argon, or some mixture with a trace of hydrogen. This gas passes through concentric, water-cooled electrodes. A spark from a separate radio frequency generator initiates the plasma. The resulting arc is then sustained by a DC power source that can maintain 1000 amps of current and much more. It can reach temperatures of 30,000°F in conventional equipment and up to 60,000°F in equipment made for high-energy plasma. This means that any material with a melting point lower than 30,000 - 60,000°F can be processed using this method. It is possible to control substrate temperatures as well to above 100°F, making it possible to put plasma coatings on a wide number of different substrates.

The same way that lightning expands the gases in the air to create thunder, the "DC arc" expands the inert gases, causing plasma to eject from the front nozzle at Mach I in conventional equipment, and at Mach II in high-energy equipment. In certain cases, even speeds of Mach III can be achieved. The powder that is to be cast is placed just inside the front nozzle or exte
ally to the nozzle and is injected into the plasma stream and then spray-cast onto the substrate by the use of an appropriate carrier gas.

With such cutting edge technology and vast experience of the people at APS Materials, our company is strong, dependable, and on the cutting edge. When it comes to coating with plasma in aerospace, APS Materials is leading the way.