Direct laser cladding, current status and future scope of application

During the last decades Direct Laser Cladding has become an established technique in many industrial fields for applying wear and corrosion protection layers on metallic surfaces as well as for the repair of high value-added components. The most important application fields are die and tool making, turbine components for aero engines and power generation, machine components such as axes and gears, and oil drilling components. Continuous wave (CW) lasers with a power up to 18 kW are used on automated machines with three or more axes, enabling 3D cladding . The outstanding feature of DLC is the high precision which leads to a minimum heat input into the work piece and a very low distortion. Due to the high cooling rates a fine grained microstructure is achieved during solidification. A new development in laser cladding is micro cladding in a size range below 50\upmum especially for electronic and medical applications. Furthermore, additive manufacturing is coming again into focus as a clean and resource-efficient method to manufacture and modify functional prototypes as well as unique and small lot parts.