| Abstract Scope |
While there are many ways to provide wear and corrosion resistance to metallic components, they often have some negative effects. Some examples of side effects are the environmental and health concerns related to processes like hard chrome plating or the need to put an entire component in a controlled environment to do nitriding or carburizing processes. For these reasons, many industries are looking towards local treatments with laser cladding being one option. Many alloys are used to provide a more wear resistant surface while contributing to corrosion resistance, such as martensitic stainless steels and high hardness nickel alloys. Another area of development that is being used in increasing amounts is the addition of ceramic particles, such as WC, into these cladding overlays. The addition of very hard WC particles which survive the high temperature fusion cladding process has a profound impact on wear resistance while the matrix metal alloy retains its properties. Many commercially available WC metal matrix composite cladding blends that exist today comprise of either austenitic stainless steel or boron silicide strengthened nickel alloy with spherical carbide particles. Some work has delved into the optimization of the WC particle size, morphology, and composition, but this work focusses more on the application of WC particles in different fractions, with different matrix alloys. By comparing the final properties, the most efficient fraction of WC and most applicable matrix material can be selected dependent on the final properties as well as the most suitable processing conditions. Another key insight is the processing parameters and how they may need to change dependent on carbide fraction and the propensity to induce cracking. |