What Is Laser Cladding?

Laser cladding technology refers to the process of placing the selected coating material on the surface of the substrate with different fillers, melting it with the shallow layer on the surface of the substrate by laser irradiation, and forming a surface coating with very low dilution after rapid solidification, and forming a metallurgical combination with the substrate material, so as to significantly improve the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, heat resistance, oxidation resistance and electrical properties of the surface of the substrate material.

According to the different feeding methods (powder or wire), laser cladding can be divided into powder laser cladding and wire laser cladding.

Wire feeding laser cladding: that is, through the wire feeding mechanism, the wire is directly sent into the spot, melting and solidifying together with the matrix to achieve the laser cladding layer. Compared with powder feeding cladding, wire feeding cladding can realize no waste of cladding materials, which is much higher than powder feeding cladding. The disadvantages are too large heat affected zone, unable to achieve good gas protection, many defects of cladding, and difficult adjustment of process parameters.

Compared with wire feeding, powder laser cladding is more widely used. According to the different ways of feeding powder, it can be divided into paraxial feeding powder and coaxial feeding powder. Coaxial powder feeding means that the laser is output from the center of the cladding head, and the metal powder is distributed around the laser in a ring or a multi-channel circumferential distribution (three or four paths are common). The powder feed is similar to the wire feed, except that the wire feed is replaced by the powder feed. The powder tube is located in front of the laser processing direction, the metal powder is deposited on the substrate surface in advance under the action of gravity, and then the rear laser beam scans on the pre-deposited powder to complete the laser cladding process.

In a molten or semi-molten state, it falls into a molten pool on the surface of the workpiece and then melts with the substrate. In this way the powder absorbs most of the energy, and the powder temperature is close to the molten pool temperature. In the high-speed cladding method, most of the energy is absorbed by the powder, so the heat input of the substrate is less, the heat-affected zone and thermal deformation are relatively small, and the cladding effect is better for thin-wall and thin plates. Since the surface quality of the coating is significantly higher than that of ordinary laser cladding, only simple grinding or polishing can be applied, so the material waste and subsequent processing amount are greatly reduced, and the ultra-high speed laser cladding has irreplaceable application advantages in cost, efficiency, and thermal impact on the parts.

The application range of laser cladding is very wide, which can cover almost the entire machinery manufacturing industry, including but not limited to mining, oil, electricity, railways, automobiles, ships and so on.

Hydraulic prop repair:

Due to its bad working environment, the speed of parts damage is relatively fast. The power equipment is running continuously, and the damage probability of its parts is also relatively high.

Motor rotor repair:

The power equipment is running continuously, and the damage probability of its parts is relatively high.

Oil drill pipe repair:

The petrochemical industry basically adopts a continuous mass production mode. In the production process, the machine works in a harsh environment for a long time, resulting in damage, corrosion and wear of the components in the equipment.

Wear-resistant roller laser cladding:

With the rapid development of social and economic growth, the demand for newly built railway vehicles is very large, and the number and performance requirements for main components are also increasing.

These devices are expensive, there are many types of parts involved, most of the shapes are strange, and it is difficult to repair them, but because of the emergence of laser cladding technology, these problems are not a problem.

Xi'an Guosheng Laser Technology Co., Ltd. is a high-tech enterprise specializing in R&D, manufacturing and sales of automatic laser cladding machine, high-speed laser cladding machine, laser quenching machine, laser welding machine and laser 3D printing equipment. Our products are cost-effective and sold domestically and abroad. If you're interested in our products, please contact us at bob@gshenglaser.com.