The continuing development of the technology known as laser surface engineering can be largely attributed to the ongoing cost to industry of wear and corrosion in critical machine components. The compositional requirements of a machine component material necessary to transmit mechanical design requirements such as strength, fatigue and shock resistance, are usually different from those that provide wear or corrosion resistance.
Laser cladding provides many industries with an opportunity to reduce maintenance costs by combining the benefits of special alloy steels with the unique ability of the laser to strategically apply a metallurgically bonded high integrity wear or corrosion resistant coating to the surface, with minimal risk to the heat sensitive alloy steel substrate.
This paper describes the benefits of laser cladding and provides application specific examples of the process.