Product Code: ICAL06_1003

Laser Cladding in Practice of Valuable Products; the Experience of a Laser Cladding Job Shop
Authors:
Willem Husslage, NedClad Technology BV; Hengelo Netherlands
Presented at ICALEO 2006

NedClad Technology BV is a small highly specialised laser clad firm. As a spin off of Twente University (NL) applies corrosion, wear and heat resistant coatings using a 2 kW Nd:YAG-laser and a 9-axis robot based manipulation system. The laser clad layers are applied on both new products and on worn and damaged products, resulting in better products than the originals. The main fields of interest are the process industry, off shore applications, combustion engine parts, energy generating equipment; besides there ia a wide variety of other customers. The laser cladding is mostly executed with lateral powder injection, enabling to clad difficult attainable surfaces. For more difficult attainable surfaces an internal bore laser clad optics is applied. For many parties laser cladding is an unknown process. Continued research efforts are put in testing of new combinations of substrate material and clad material, in qualification by corrosion and wear testing, metallography, optimising properties of clad layer and heat affected zone of the work piece. Recently the Dutch Water Authorities (Rijkswaterstaat) qualified Ni-base alloyed clad layers for highly affected components exposed to seawater with a guaranteed lifetime of 25 years. The paper will describe applications (a.o. high pressure valves, crank shafts, drilling equipment, compressor parts) and in more detail results of research activities.