Diode laser modification of surface gradient layer properties of a hot-work tool steel

The objective of the present work was to study the modification of the microstructure of hot-work tool steels X40CrMoV5-1 and X38CrMoV5-3 during the surface modifying by means of laser technology. This treatment aims to harden and alloy the steel surface which had been previously coated with tungsten carbide (WC) and were introduced using the rotor conveyer to improve the properties of the surface layer. The fine grained, dendritic structure occurs in the remelted and alloyed zone with the crystallization direction connected with the dynamical heat abstraction from the laser beam influenced zone. The fine grained martensite structure is responsible for the hardness increase of the alloyed layer.