Plasma Transferred Arc (PTA) Weld Overlays

Highest quality weld overlay/hardfacing deposits available in the market.

Paragon Protective Coatings (PPC) Ltd. is a leading North American provider of automated weld overlay services to the oil sands, mining, manufacturing and oil & gas industries.

PPC’s has chosen PTAW as our primary overlay process because it offers the following advantages over “standard” welding processes;

• high alloy deposition rates,
• minimal base metal dilution and HAZ,
• homogeneous and porosity free overlays,
• ID capabilities,
• high tolerance thickness control,
• excellent reproducibility for long production runs and,
• alloys available for corrosion, erosion (wear) or corrosion-erosion applications.

The PTAW process is characterized by a high-density plasma column, created from the ionization of an inert gas passing through an electric arc formed between a tungsten electrode and the anode in the welding torch. The plasma column exits the welding torch, and acts as a conduit for the second electric arc (the transferred arc) to travel between the torch and the base metal. The transferred arc is controlled to increase/decrease the energy of the welding process (allowing for melting of the base metal and overlay material).

The overlay material, in powder form, is continuously fed onto the work piece through the torch/plasma arc.

The PTA process must be automated; PPC uses multiple integrated robots to not only manage the PTA process (parameters and torch position), but to also manipulate the component being welded.

The combined properties of a highly controlled welding process, and very high-quality weld overlays makes PTA ideally suited to the most severe forms of abrasion and/or corrosion for your expensive or critical process components.

Our in-house technical staff, and unique supply chain agreements allows us to rapidly customize a PTA material to suit your specific application needs.