Laser Hardening

Reduce coefficient of friction and gain higher throughput, reproducibility and product quality.

Coating Services

Laser hardening - modern & efficient surface heat treatment

Laser hardening offers many advantages over conventional heat treatment processes - the economical aspects include a high throughput, reproducibility and product quality. In many applications, localized treatment and minimal heat input results in reduced distortion and the rapid quench rates produce a fine microstructure. Laser surface treatments can be divided into processes involving solid state transformations and melting processes. The former category includes martensitic hardening, tempering and shock hardening while the latter includes re-melting, alloying, cladding and dispersion hardening.

Laser hardening and its advantages:

Wear resistance

The primary advantage of laser hardening is the improvement of wear resistance. As a result, abrasive wear is reduced to a great extent.

Higher hardness

Laser hardened surfaces exhibit higher hardness than the abrasive medium, while adhesive wear can also be influenced by means of a reduction in the coefficient of friction.

Improve fatigue of surface characteristics

In addition, laser hardening can improve the fatigue characteristics of surfaces thanks to an increase in the compressive stress, which shifts the load bearing capacity to a level higher than the applied Hertzian stress.

Laser Hardening

How does laser surface hardening work?

The most commonly employed process is martensitic transformation hardening and is applied to carbon steels and cast irons. Application of the laser beam rapidly raises the surface temperature (at up to 1000K/s), resulting in a thin layer that is converted into austenite. This rapid heating and subsequent cooling, facilitated by the conduction of heat into the bulk material, lead to self-quenching. This produces a rapidly cooled surface layer and causes a transformation of the austenite into martensite. It is therefore important that the steel is in appropriate conditions (quenched and tempered) and that the process conditions are carefully selected for laser hardening steel.

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Terms related to laser hardening

Thin films generally have a hardness much higher than the substrate. Classical hardness tests rely on a deep indentation. For thin films, the film hardness can only be determined accurately by means of an indentation depth considerably less than the film thickness. The standard hardness tests used is the Vickers Hardness test whereby a pyramid shaped diamond is applied with a standard load of e.g. 20 mN.

Adhesion is normally classified by Rockwell indentation, a diamond with tip-radius of 200 µm and cone angle of 120° is indented with a standard force (0.5 N). The image is analysed and results in a classification of HF1 to HF6. The measurement is semi-quantitative. The measurement does not result from the binding between surface and first coating layer, but the mechanical response of the coating plus substrate under load. The adhesion test is carried out in accordance to VDI 3198.

Friction coefficients can be measured in many ways. Generally the friction coefficient is measured without lubrication in a normal air atmosphere and against an uncoated standard steel plate.

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