5. Costs

Assessing these costs is always difficult, and is highly dependent on production volume. At high production levels, the main cost factors include: equipment depreciation, labor, production materials (powder, wires, ingots, etc.), energy and gases, and indirect costs (maintenance and replacement of wearing parts, cleaning or replacement of tools, post-deposition treatment, storage, packaging and shipment of production). Clearly, open-air production (flame or plasma spraying, atmospheric CVD) is far less expensive than controlled atmosphere or vacuum deposition. Indeed, for industrial production, it is necessary to be able to rapidly introduce the parts to be treated and recover those treated, including the necessary preheating and cooling. This requires loading and preheating chambers, followed by depositing, cooling and unloading chambers, all fed by robots. It should also be borne in mind...