Development of theoretical process maps to study the role of powder preheating in laser cladding

Cladding is the process of depositing a superior built-up layer by fusion on a substrate. In blown powder laser cladding process, the powder travels across the laser path, gets heated up by absorbing laser energy, and finally melts on the substrate under the intense laser beam; as the substrate moves away this melt pool solidifies to form a continuous built-up layer. The laser energy is partly absorbed by the solid powder during its flight path (termed preheating) and partly by the top surface of the melt pool. In the present study a two-dimensional conduction heat transfer equation has been solved using finite-volume method to model the cladding process. It is observed that preheating allows higher scanning speed resulting in thin clad layer with low dilution. Preheating also permits high powder feed rate resulting in thick cladding with low dilution.