Surface alloying of magnesium base alloys with high power CO2-laser

In addition to the well established processes of laser hardening of steel and laser remelting of cast iron, the laser surface modification of light metals finds more and more interest in the research community. While a lot of work concentrates on aluminium and titanium, only a few investigations on the laser treatment of magnesium are published(1-17). In this work the laser surface alloying of magnesium base alloys with aluminium, copper, nickel, silicon and combinations of these elements was carried out. In all cases the laser alloying process led to an increase of hardness caused by the formation of intermetallic compounds. This resulted in improved wear resistance and in some cases additionally in improved corrosion resistance.