A NEW APPROACH OF SURFACE-TREATMENT - MICRO-BEAM PLASMA-ARC REMELTING

A new method of surface treatment, micro-beam plasma arc melting/remel ting, is proposed, and is applied to Fe-C-Cr-Si-B overlay in the paper . The surface of overlay was remelted by multi-pass scanning of micro- beam plasma are and self-quenched by the underlying substrate. With th is technique a microcrack-free remelting layer was produced for the ir on-base overlay despite that it contained great amounts of carbon (4.2 wt%) and chromium (24.66 wt%), and even amorphous phase was found thr ough transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on the top surface of reme lting layer. The experimental results show that the micro-beam plasma are melting/remelting is a unique technique of surface treatment with a significant application potential. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.