Recent Developments in the Area of Laser Cladding and Surface Alloying

Cladding and surface alloying are essential for functional components that require resistance to wear, corrosion, fatigue, fracture, creep, and thermal degradation of alloys. It is used to produce thin layers with enhanced surface qualities to repair surface flaws by generating extremely resistant gradient clad layers on base plate. Laser cladding technique is a hard facing method that involves melting clad materials and forming a thin layer of the base plate with a high-powered laser beam to deposit a coating without pore and crack with minimal dilution that is perfectly adhered to the substrate. These methods are useful for processing a wide variety of materials due to their high energy density. In this chapter, laser cladding and surface alloying (LCSA) is introduced in detail from aspects of working principle, various cladding techniques, and various numerical approaches of laser interaction with substrate materials. It summarizes the findings of experimental and theoretical investigations that were undertaken to enhance process performance. This chapter reviews previous research in LCSA of advanced materials and their applications, as well as their solutions and future work trends.