Blown powder laser cladding is a cost effective way of producing a surface layer to withstand wear and corrosion. However, the cladding process is slow. Therefore is it of great interest to investigate how much of the laser power is used in the cladding process and how much is reflected etc. In this investigation an Nd:YAG and a CO2-laser have been compared as energy sources for the process. Every aspect of the energy redistribution during cladding has been analysed. The main energy loss to the process for both lasers is by reflection from the melt pool and the powder cloud. It was found that the Nd:YAG laser cladding process is approximately twice as energy efficient as the CO2 laser cladding process.

Topics
Lasers, Corrosion, Materials synthesis and processing
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2002
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