Laser cladding a surface treatment process that grants superior characteristics such as toughness, hardness, and corrosion resistance to the surface, and rebuilds cracked molds; as such, it can be a strong tool to prolong service life of mold steel. Furthermore, compared with the other similar coating processes – thermal spray, etc., laser cladding provides superior bonding strength and precision coating on a local area. In this study, surface characteristics are studied after laser cladding of low carbon steel using 18%Cr-2.5%Ni-Fe powder (Rockit404), known for its high hardness and excellent corrosion resistance. A diode laser with wavelength of 900-1070 nm is adopted as laser source under argon atmosphere; electrical power for the laser cladding process is 5, 6, and 10 kW. Fundamental surface characteristics such as crossectional microstructure and hardness profile are observed and measured, and special evaluation, such as a soldering test with molten ALDC12 alloy, is conducted to investigate the corrosion resistance characteristics. As a result of the die-soldering test by immersion of low carbon alloy steel in ALDC12 molten metal, the clad layer's soldering thickness decreases.

In this study, the coating of an Al-Cr layer on the surface of a Zircaloy-4 alloy was carried out through plasma pretreatment coating and a laser surface melting process. Two different conditions for laser treatment, severe or minimal surface melting of the Zr alloy substrate, were applied to form the final coating. When there was significant surface melting of the Zr alloy, the solidification microstructure of the newly formed coating layer was mainly composed of needle-shaped Al3Zr, Al(Cr) and Al7Cr phases. On the other hand, the solidification microstructure of the coating layer was mainly composed of Al(Cr) and Al7Cr phases when there was minimal surface melting of Zr base in the laser process. However, when the coating was maintained at 1100 oC for 2 hours, significant inter-diffusion occurred between the phases in the coating. As a result, the upper part of the coating layer was observed to mainly consist of Al3Zr and Al8Cr5 phases, regardless of the laser treatment conditions.

본 연구에서는 ALBC3 합금에 Ni기 자용성 합금으로 내마모성 및 내캐비테이션 특성을 향상시키기 위하여 용사코팅 후 열처리를 실시하여 캐비테이션 특성을 평가하였다. 본 연구 결과, 자용성 합금 코팅층이 높은 경도를 나타내어 내마모성이 우수할 것으로 판단되나, 다공질의 조직으로 인해 열악한 내캐비테이션 특성을 나타냈다. 따라서 열처리 조건의 최적화가 중요하며, 본 조건에서는 열처리온도를 높여 자용성 합금 내 B와 Si의 유동성을 증가시킴으로써 기공이나 결함을 제거하여 특성개선 효과를 기대할 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.