The Benefits and Opportunities of Laser Cladding
Laser cladding is a new type of coating technology that involves light, machine, electricity, material, detection and control, and more. It is a critical support technology for laser advanced manufacturing technology, which could solve challenges that conventional methods of production are unable to resolve, in addition to essential national encouragement and promotion of high-tech.
Laser cladding technology is now widely used in various fields such as aviation, petroleum, automobile, machinery manufacturing, shipbuilding, and mold production, and has become an essential tool for the preparation of new substances, quick production of metal parts, and the environmental recycling of worn metal components.
The Advantages of Laser Cladding
The laser beam is capable of a focused power density of 1010~12 W/cm² and is able to cool the material with rates of up to 1012K/s. This combined property not only provides a strong foundation for the further development of materials science, but also provides an unprecedented tool for the creation of new materials or useful surfaces. Numerous studies indicate the rapid cooling conditions of the melt away from the equilibrium state at high-temperature gradients created by laser cladding, resulting in the formation of a large number of supersaturated solid
solutions, metastable phases, and even new phases in the strengthened tissue. It introduces entirely new thermodynamic and kinetic conditions for the manufacture of functional gradient autogenous particle-reinforced composite layers in situ. Meanwhile, laser melting technology is a critical basis for the repair and remanufacturing of failed parts under extreme conditions, in addition to the direct manufacturing of metal components, which is highly valued and investigated in many aspects by scientific communities and enterprises all over the world.
Prospect analysis of laser cladding
A laser cladding machine is currently used to prepare metal matrix composites such as iron-based, aluminum-based, titanium-based, cobalt-based, nickel-based, magnesium-based, and so on. As a result, using the laser melting method to prepare gradient functionally reset self-generated particles with metallurgical bonding with the substrate material is not only an urgent priority in the field of engineering, but also an inevitable development in the evolution of laser surface modification technology. The preparation of in situ self-generated particle-reinforced metal matrix composites and functional gradient materials by laser melting technology has been reported, but a
majority of them are still in the stage of organization and performance analysis and control of the process parameters, and the size, distance, and volume ratio of the reinforcing phase cannot reach a controllable level, and the gradient function is formed by multi-layer coating, which inevitably has the problem of inhomogeneous layering. There’s still a long way to go. Most firms are presently relying on laser technology for manufacturing increasingly, and we believe that laser cladding technology will be promising in today’s highly competitive manufacturing market.
Finida Technology is dedicated to supplying cladding technology companies with metal cladding materials and proven solutions. Please contact us whenever you are in search for metal powders for laser cladding or wish to develop your own cladding system.
