Cold Cast cold spray techniques help improve the ongoing maintenance of ships and extend the life of their older components. We argue that the main benefits of cold spraying are faster maintenance and reduced costs to reuse ship components. Cold spraying refers to repairs at low temperatures, where the bonding process takes place between 100 °C and 500 °C. Conventional welding methods start at about 2,760 °C. It is the high speed, and formative, kinetic energy with which the powder strikes the part that causes bonding, not the high temperature, which means that the metal properties of the part are not distorted or damaged. Cold spraying is also useful for bonding more brittle nonmetals, such as ceramics.
U.S. Navy engineers have previously demonstrated cold-spraying as a new approach to repairing naval equipment.