Structuring of steel specimens in order to raise theadhesive strength of a thermally sprayed copper-basedalloy for the investigation of the utilisation potentialson connecting rods without any bearing shells

This article deals with mechanical structuring by means of wire electrical discharge machining in order to produce undercut structures which are intended to raise the adhesive strength of a copper coating on a steel substrate. The investigations were conducted on steel specimens which were coated with a copperbased alloy in a conventional arc wire spraying (AWS) process. The processes generated on the test specimens are subsequently to be transferred to connecting rods, with the objective of replacing the half-shells of the sliding bearings in the connecting rod big end with a thermally sprayed bearing coating.