Laser cladding with coaxial wire feeding

In the last years coaxial laser heads have been developed with centric wire feeding equipment which enables the laser processing of complex shaped objects in different applications. These newly developed laser heads are being used in laser brazing experiments in the automotive industry. This paper presents experimental results of using a coaxial laser head for wire cladding application. The coaxial wire cladding method has significant improvements compared to the off-axis wire cladding method, such as independence of the travel direction, alignment of the wire to the laser beam and a reduced number of controlling parameters. These features are important to achieve high quality coatings. Experimental cladding tests were done with a coaxial laser wire welding head at Fraunhofer IWS. High quality corrosion resistant coatings with low dilution were produced using Inconel 625 solid wire