Laser cladding of aerospace materials

In recent years, the aerospace industry has devoted a large amount of resources to the research and development of new repair technologies for gas turbine components. Traditionally their main repair tool is tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding but a new non-traditional process is emerging called laser cladding. This paper shows that by using this process, protective coating materials can be clad onto aerospace component substrates. We have shown that it has the potential to form pore-free and crack-free coatings. Two cladding materials, in the form of fine alloy powder, were clad onto five different substrate materials. The microstructure, hardness, cracking, porosity and dilution levels were recorded in each case and compared to TIG welded samples. Some of these results are discussed here. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.