Parametric Study and Optimization of Fe-based Alloy Powder Laser Cladding of Stainless Steel
T-B. Yu, B-X. Song, W-C. XI, Y. Zhao and Z. Wang
The selection of appropriate parameter combinations of laser cladding is crucial to obtain desirable quality of cladding layer. In this study a fractional factorial design with fraction of 1/6 experiment is implemented, and main laser cladding parameters including laser power, scanning speed and feeding rate are selected to analyse the impact on geometrical shapes (including clad width, clad height and clad depth) of cladding layer. Integrating entropy method, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is employed here to optimize and find appropriate parameter combination to realize the desirable clad quality with large clad width, small clad height and clad depth. The combination of 750 W laser power, 10 m/s scanning speed and 1 r/min feeding rare is selected as the desirable process parameters. The proposed optimization method is validated by both experiment design and theoretical calculation and can be extended to parameter selection for other types of metal powder.
Keywords: Fibre laser, Fe-based alloy, stainless steel, powder, laser cladding, parameter, optimization, entropy, technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS)