A range of characterisation equipment was purchased and commissioned. State-of-the-art chromate conversion coated samples were also obtained from aerospace metal finishers.
A CoBlast-deposited adhesive primer was developed. Following various rounds of testing and iterative improvements, the process was demonstrated to be of comparable strengths to state-of-the-art chromate-reliant processes. Extensive lap-shear testing has demonstrated excellent tensile strength of bonded joints following various ageing regimes, again comparable to existing state-of-the-art technologies.
Honeycomb panels, common in aerospace applications, were manufactured using the process and again demonstrated to have equivalent strength to chromic acid anodised counterparts. The coating of these panels also served as a trial production run, indicating the suitability of the process for scaled-up production activities.
During the course of the project, ENBIO supported a student-led ESA Fly Your Satellite activity- EIRSAT-1. This will bring about the first in-flight demonstration of the coating, expected early 2020. It also fulfilled a number of qualification requirements in terms of outgassing testing, vibration testing and thermal cycling. In all cases, the coating has met or exceeded the qualification criteria.
These results and activities were disseminated through various conferences and workshops. Results were also posted to the projects various webpages, including the Enbio website, researchgate and zenodo project pages. Where possible, full open data sets were included. Following these dissemination activities, a number of promising customer engagements are underway. Using feedback from these customer engagements, various coating services and equipment have been proposed and a draft licence agreement put in place. At the project close, one customer has already signed such an agreement.
Further commercialisation and dissemination activities are ongoing, with an official product launch scheduled for September 2019, pending the results of simulated launch (vibrational testing).
