Alloy development by laser cladding: An overview

The ever increasing and often conflicting demands made on engineering mater ials for suitable physical, chemical, and mechanical properties, have led e ngineers to take an increased interest in surface coating techniques for ma terial protection. Laser cladding has shown that high quality, distortion f ree, clad, or alloyed layers can be deposited successfully on base material s. The blown powder laser cladding technique has been established and is us ed to produce analogs of bulk high alloy materials as hardfacing wear resis tant coatings on plane carbon steel substrates. This article shows that a s mall selection of cladding materials is used in a wide range of cladding ap plications. An overview is given on how the cladding process is used to gen erate alloys quickly from powder mixtures of metals and ceramics. Considera tion is then given to the variable composition laser cladding technique. (C ) 2001 Laser Institute of America.