Fabrication of composite alloy cladding material by brazing process

In this paper, hard cladding material used for low-carbon steel was developed at 1150 °C by using a brazing process so as to improve surface abrasiveness of common steel castings. The macrohardness of the cladding material after heat treatment was up to HRC50–69. Copper-based alloy was used as the brazing alloy in this technique. The microstructure of the cladding material was studied using SEM and EDAX. Results show that the hard phase and the binding alloy were well distributed in the hard layer in which the volume fraction of WC hard phase was about 40–50%, and that the hard cladding material was composed of a copper-based solid solution matrix, Cr-phase and MnNi-type compound dispersion phase as well as WC hard phase. Strong metallurgical bondings are formed between a steel substrate and the hard layer, as well as between the binding alloy and the hard phase, respectively, because of mutual diffusion of alloying elements. Compared to 30MnSiTi low-alloy steel of martensitic structure, the wear resistance of this hard cladding material increased by 35–53 times and 6.7–10.4 times separately in two- and three-body abrasion systems.