Laser cladding consists in remelting the coating materials, which
are in the powder form with the small as possible substrate material
in order to create a new surface layer. Co-based alloy powders
and Ni-based alloy powders are most commonly used. Through this
method of materials surfacing, it is possible quick repair of damaged
machine parts [1], as well as create a one- and multilayer coatings
[2] on tools which are exposed on frictional wear in exploitation.
Laser cladding technology allows to placement of powdered
materials directly into the laser beam in inert gas shielded. In this
way, it is possible to avoid oxidation both powder and material
substrate. The coating material is carefully cladded on product of
any shape through the use of specialized 5-axis device or robot arm
equipped with a specially designed powder feeding system. Selection
of parameters like power and diameter of laser beam, feed rate,
powder feed rate, feed rate of the shielding gas and carrier gas, allows
to produce the cladding layer with desired thickness and definite
proportion of powders components. The properties of the surface
layer after laser cladding device also depends on the substrate
properties, and mainly on its chemical composition. The effect of
substrate material is expressed mainly through phase changes in
the heat-affected zone, and to a lesser extent, through the substrate
components participation in cladding layer. Currently, laser cladding
is one of the most advanced technologies in surface science
and engineering, but reasonable results can be obtained by a detailed
study the influence of various parameters on the surface layer
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