Surface Technologies

The harmful effects of abrasion and corrosion have long been life limiting factors impacting landing gear components.  While manufacturers have deployed a variety of coatings to extend component service life, options for protecting the inside diameter of oleo strut bodies has long been limited to chrome plating.  This limitation is a result of both the line of sight nature and excessive substrate heat transfer associated with legacy HVOF application systems.  When a longer lasting coating, such as HVOF applied tungsten carbide/cobalt/chromium, is applied to the outside piston surface, the chrome coated inside diameter of the strut body quickly becomes the service life limiting factor of the entire assembly. Kymera’s proprietary HaloJet^TM ID HVOF coating system solves this problem.

The HaloJet^TM ID HVOF coating system uses state of the art material processing and Kymera’s Adiabatic Flame Technology to maximize coating density and heat transfer to the coating alloy particle while minimizing heat transfer to the substrate material.  These unique features allow the HaloJet^TM ID HVOF application system to coat internal surfaces as small as 2.5” (63mm) while keeping substrate temperatures below 300°F (150°C).

HaloJet^TM ID HVOF is a REACh compliant coating eliminating prohibited or restricted hexavalent chrome or cadmium coatings from your supply chain.

Kymera’s Thermal Spray Solutions facility located in Chesapeake, Virginia, is NAVSEA certified by the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Process Standard MIL-STD 1687A. This certification is for “Thermal Spray Processes for Naval Ship Machinery Applications.” Additionally, the facility is certified by the Department of the Navy’s Submarine Maintenance Engineering Planning and Procure Activity (SUBMEPP). Kymera proudly supports the United States Navy’s fleet and allied forces.

Longer, deeper, and hotter wells can be challenging for various tools used during well stimulation and production. In addition, the need to minimize inventory presents further difficulties. Kymera has been partnering with the oil and gas industry for over thirty years to develop coating solutions that extend product life, reduce repair costs, and minimize downtime.

Identifying the right coating solution is only the first part of our commitment. We understand the intense pressure on operations to continuously improve service levels while reducing inventory carrying costs. Once we have assisted in selecting the right coating for your application, our focus shifts to rapid service response. Kymera is a vertically integrated operation that provides a broad range of surface coating technologies along with extensive inspection, testing, finishing, and machining services.

Kymera is a comprehensive service supplier with expertise in wear and corrosion-related maintenance activities. We support both in-shop and on-site operations from the mine face to the tailings pond. By leveraging our extensive oilsands-specific experience and drawing from all sites and areas of operation, you can reduce asset owning and operating costs while extending asset life and increasing reliability. Our services can help compress vendor management costs.

For three decades, Kymera has been collaborating with the largest oil and gas plant operators to solve challenging problems related to corrosion, abrasion, and erosion. Our goal is to prevent unexpected outages, which can be very costly. We understand the importance of working on-site, in confined spaces, alongside other contractors and client personnel to meet a start-up date.

At Kymera, our workforce is highly trained, and our equipment is specifically designed to withstand challenging environments. We have an award-winning safety program that ensures a successful, on-time, and on-budget turnaround without any incidents.

We can also remanufacture and return to service component parts that are removable, such as cyclones and shed decks.

Kymera offers value added service through providing turnkey, thermal spray coated, marine propeller shafts, sleeves, electric motor shafts, and valve components.  We work closely with both our customer’s engineering personnel as well as strategic CNC manufacturing partners to ensure that parts are manufactured to proper specifications for the application of the coating.

Kymera offers a broad range of durable solutions for both original equipment and MRO services. Our solutions cater to a wide range of applications, from large surface areas to high-volume serial production. We work closely with our customers, to create fit-for-purpose solutions that meet the unique operational requirements of each application.

Crafting solutions with uncompromising quality assurance

Pride in what we do is reflected by the quality of our advice and service. We’re passionate about people, process and service excellence and believe this passion is reflected in our work. Innovation, continuous improvement and an intense focus on your requirements guide our behavior. To us, excellence is found in the power of quality. Kymera’s comprehensive, certified quality management system ensures the end product meets even your most discerning requirements. Key credentials of our quality system include:

• ABSA ASME B31.3 and Intertek ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management systems
• Field-based quality control offered both intrinsically, as part of site supervision or independent of day-to-day operations
• On-site testing, research and development labs in Houston, TX and Research Triangle Park, NC

Kymera also holds the following quality certifications:

Department of the Navy   

Thermal Spray Solutions, Inc. is Certified in accordance with MIL-STD 1687A

Department of Defense Manufacturing Process Standard, “Thermal Spray Processes for Naval Ship Machinery Applications”

ABS Type Approval Program   

Type Approval – Certificate Number: 07-HS288945/1-PDA

Type Approval – Certificate Number: 08-HS318209-PDA

Certificate of Manufacturing Assessment – Certificate Number: NN958907

Certificate of Design Assessment – Certificate Number: 07-HS288945/1-PDA

Certificate of Design Assessment – Certificate Number: 08-HS318209-PDA

Lloyd’s Register    

Thermal Spray Solutions, Inc. is Certified in accordance with the requirements of Lloyd’s Register for the application of thermal spray coatings.

Certificate Number: MNDE/REP/0058/01

Department of the Navy    

Submarine Maintenance Engineering Planning and Procurement Activity (SUBMEPP)

Thermal Spray Solutions, Inc. is certified in accordance with NAVSEA S9320-AM-PRO-030/MLDG, Rev 03 for the application of Non-Conductive Coatings (NCC) on submarine cable connectors.

Kymera’s Surface Technologies team, located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, specializes in thermal spray coating applications, customized and spherical powders, cored wire products, and field service support.

With our extensive industry experience and expertise, we are the premier development and production partner. Our facility is equipped with plasma, HVOF, and Wire-ARC thermal spray processing capabilities, as well as cored wire and spherical powder production. Additionally, we have a fully equipped metallurgical and materials characterization laboratory on-site.

Customized Powders & Cored Wire Products

Kymera offers a family of thermal spray solutions that use finely dispersed niobium carbide with excellent corrosion and erosion resistance as an alternative to cobalt containing materials. Available as composite cored wire metal powders, we have large volume spooled wire available for field service. Our comprehensive ARC-CLAD thermal spray coating materials and services are supported by application development in our in-house lab in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, with complete metallurgical analysis capabilities.

HaloJet ID HVOF^TM coating is the solution to improve inside diameter coating while eliminating hexavalent chromium from the production process. Our proprietary system is a highly effective and proven solution, especially for landing gear components.

The HaloJet system uses state-of-the-art technology to coat internal diameter surfaces as small as 2.5 inches (63 mm) while keeping temperatures below 300°F (150°C). With production based in Houston, Texas, HaloJet is an integrated system with three proprietary features (a nano gun, nano carbides and a rotary jet) working in parallel to apply a WC-Co-Cr coating to the inner diameter of a landing gear sleeve.

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Kymera is certified to apply a long-lasting, nonskid flight deck coating, co-developed with NRL, for use on aircraft carriers that carry the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B fighter jets.

Our team provides full on-ship service including surface preparation, thermal spray material application using highly reproducible robotic technology, and final organic top coating. Additional naval applications are currently in development.

The BrazeCoat® process enables the production of wear-resistant coatings for protecting the surfaces of components that are exposed to high levels of abrasion or erosion. Available in paste or tape form, the deposition brazing process creates an extremely hard surface layer, extending service life of components.

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InnoTape is a polymer bonded, flexible tape consisting of brazing filler metal and Ni/Co-based superalloy powders of the desired composition. Kymera offers turbine repair brazing solutions including:

• Flexible repair tapes (InnoTape) of single, double, triple or multilayer
• Binder free pre-sintered preforms (PSPs) derived from InnoTape
• 3-dimensional preforms with exact adjustment for complex shapes

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Coating materials tailored to your application

The right material choice is a critical factor in a successful coating solution. Kymera’s decades of experience collaborating with clients to solve their most severe wear problems has led to our extensive suite of proprietary materials. Kymera’s material science team can assist in assessing your wear challenge to select the ideal material and coating system for your application.

Thermal spray coating systems melt or soften feedstock material, in the form of wire or powder, by flame or electricity and propel the resultant material onto a workpiece. Thermal spray coatings are broadly used to protect new, or salvage used, downhole tool, industrial components and polymer processing components. These are highly versatile coatings that are rapidly applied with low heat input and can be utilized across a broad range of components.

Thermal spray coatings allow for modification of the surface layer of a workpiece while preserving the mechanical properties of the base material. Kymera has extensive experience operating various application systems designed to solve our clients most challenging wear and corrosion problems.

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Types of Thermal Spray Coatings

High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF)

HaloJet ID HVOF^TM

Twin Wire Arc

Plasma

Combustion

Weld overlay, sometimes referred to as cladding or hard facing, is a welding process where a corrosive or wear resistant coating is applied onto a base material to improve parent material properties or restore the original dimension of a worn part.

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Types of Weld Overlay

Plasma Transferred Arc (PTA)

Spray and Fuse Tungsten Carbide

Flux-Cored Arc Welding (FCAW)

The BrazeCoat® process enables the production of wear-resistant coatings for protecting the surfaces of components that are exposed to high levels of abrasion or erosion. Available in paste or tape form, the deposition brazing process creates an extremely hard surface layer, extending service life of components.

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Kymera operates a modern, clean, certified contamination-free electroplating operation designed to safely handle the ever increasing size of components commonly utilized in oilfield drilling and mass mining applications. Our infrastructure capabilities support rapid processing speeds, inside and outside diameter plating and finishing.

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Types of Electroplating

Hard Chrome Electroplating

Sulfamate Nickel Plating