Off-line generation of robot trajectories for thermal spray processes with respect to the heat and mass transfer

This thesis aims at contributing to the planning of the process kinematics for thermal spraying under consideration of the heat and mass transfer to the component. The objective of the work is to develop concepts for robot trajectory generation, which lead to a better control of the coating properties, by controlling the parameters defined by the process kinematics and the related phenomena, such as the heat transfer to the substrate. Two approaches of off-line programming are considered to give a solution to the problem exposed above. A model to minimise the temperature gradients within the substrate is created, considering the coating of planar substrates. A mathematical model of the heat transfer during spraying is developed and used for the optimisation of the spray path in order to produce low temperature gradients in the composite. Furthermore, trajectory generation to coat complex shaped components is considered. For that case, an increase in the degrees of freedom of the handling system is made by implementing an external rotational axis, which positions the substrate during the deposition process and allows the maintaining of constant kinematic parameters in order to obtain homogeneous coatings.