Dear Colleagues,

Recently, powder metallurgy has been emerging as an alternative route to produce functional materials with multifunctional behavior arising from single or multilayer coatings. Functional thick coatings layers are generally fabricated by conventional routes of casting, briefly described as multistep processes leaving some serious flaws within the material. However, thermal plasma technologies, including, among others, spraying, melting, and sintering techniques, are mostly single-step processes capable of preparing the desired and impurity-free coatings. The functional coating covering the substrates shows good adhesion to the interface, enhancing future functional and corrosive behavior. Blending thermal plasma and powder metallurgy technologies opens up the possibility for the fabrication of thick coatings, spurred primarily by functional behavior with demand in durability with extreme environmental conditions typical for applications ranging from medical to aerospace and automotive actuation industries. The current state of knowledge demands functional coatings such as NiTi shape memory alloys offering functional properties that need to maintain structural material integrity and reliability under extreme environments. It is necessary to focus on experimental, theoretical, and modeling studies to fully investigate and describe the functional coatings deposited by thermal plasma processes.

Starting from pure metals and moving up to alloys-based coatings with promising and even extraordinary protective and functional behavior may be achieved by thermal plasma technologies. The combination provides unprecedented functionality and opportunities for multifunctional coatings.

This Special Issue will serve as a forum for papers in the following concepts:

• Theoretical and experimental research, new ideas in thermal plasma processing of functional coatings using powder metallurgy route.
• Recent approaches toward single and multi-layer functional coatings made of pure metals or alloys.
• Thick coatings fabricated by a different process of thermal plasma technology including, among others, plasma spraying, spark-plasma sintering, and laser meting processing methods.
• Experiments and processing of high-performance coatings with mechanical, functional, tribological, and other extreme environmental applications.
• Understanding the functional mechanism of coatings through mechanical performance, self-healing, and description of their degradation mechanisms through the scratch test, indent point, wear test, and other dynamic loading conditions.
• A new methodology for considering the interplay relationship between mechanical, chemical, and electromechanical interactions of coating/substrate/environment and the ability to predict coating performance and/or reliability.
• Computer modeling and simulation to predict properties, performance, durability, and reliability of coatings in service environments.

Dr. Sneha Manjaree Samal
Dr. Filip Průša
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• thermal plasma
• coating
• structural properties
• functional behavior
• thick film
• substrate–coating interface
• tribological evolution of coatings