A convergent-barrel (CB) cold spray nozzle was designed through numerical simulation. It was found that the main factors influencing significantly particle velocity and temperature include the length and diameter of the barrel section, the nature of the accelerating gas and its pressure and temperature, and the particle size. Particles can achieve a relatively low velocity but a high temperature under the same gas pressure using a CB nozzle compared to a convergent-divergent (CD) nozzle. The experiment results with Cu powder using the designed CB nozzle confirmed that particle deposition can be realized under a lower gas pressure with a CB nozzle. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.