Scientists from Höganäs, Sweden, presented “High-Speed Laser Cladding For Innovative Applications” at ASM International’s ITSC 2019 conference in Japan. Laser cladding has been available for about 40 years, but the process has reached a more general industrial acceptance fairly recently. Other coating processes such as PTA, thermal spray, GMAW, etc., are well known and have a lower investment cost than lasers.
The benefits of laser cladding include lower heat input, lower dilution, less material consumption, and overall better performance. With the last decade’s development of high-power laser sources from 10 µm wavelength CO2 lasers to high-power solid-state lasers with wavelengths around one micron, improved process efficiency, lower costs, and smaller footprints have been achieved. As a result, laser cladding has rapidly become more interesting for a wide variety of applications.
The most novel development in surface coating is high-speed laser cladding with surface speeds up to 400 m/min, depending on properties of the powder and substrate. The high process speed, low heat input and minimal dilution with the substrate opens up for new applications and material combinations previously not possible with conventional laser cladding.
This paper showed some of the successful applications and material combinations the authors have achieved with high-speed laser cladding.
Authors: Dr. Conny M Lampa, Mr. Ivan Smirnov, Mrs. Ingrid Hauer Miller, Höganäs AB, Höganäs, Sweden
