Improving laser cladding productivity with ‘ABA’ cladding

Laser Cladding is one of several processes within Additive Manufacturing and usually involves the production of a clad surface by adding parallel, overlapping lines of clad material to the surface of a substrate. In this work a new laser cladding technique (‘ABA’ cladding) is investigated wherein a series of separate, or only slightly overlapping clad tracks are laid down initially (the ‘A’ tracks), and these are later interleaved with tracks which can use different parameters (the ‘B’ tracks). The influence of the process parameters was examined in the laser cladding of AISI 316L stainless steel and Stellite 6 powders using a coaxial powder delivery nozzle. ‘ABA’ cladding was found to have considerable benefits over traditional laser cladding including: Improved powder catchment efficiency and coverage rates, more predictable metallurgy and dilution levels, and the ability to clad combinations of different alloys on the substrate surface