Effect of different laser scanning sequences on temperature field and deformation of laser cladding

Laser cladding is usually used for remanufacturing plate and shaft parts. Because the laser cladding process belongs to the energy loading process, it is inevitable to produce stress and plastic deformation, which will cause the parts to lose the original shape precision after the cladding. To reduce the deformation of the parts after laser cladding and reduce the workload of the processing parts, the influence of different laser scanning sequence methods on the deformation of the substrate is studied at this angle. Due to the very uneven distribution of the temperature field of the substrate during the laser irradiation, the uneven distribution of the temperature field will eventually cause the deformation of the cladding parts. To reduce the deformations of the parts after the cladding, we should make the temperature field distributed more evenly in the parts of the cladding process. Based on this theory, laser cladding of a stainless-steel plate for three different laser scanning sequence methods is studied. The results show that the scanning path significantly influences the temperature field and deformation of the part. The study's main objective was to reduce the temperature variance and thermal deformation of a flat plate stainless steel clamped substrate using different laser scanning sequences. During the investigation, it was found that the same direction and different side cladding can better balance the relationship between heat accumulation and heat dissipation on the substrate and molten pool, making the temperature field more uniform and decreasing the deformation of the parts. This study is helpful in improving the quality of the laser cladding parts. Finally, optimized process parameters have been used to further minimize the temperature variance and substrate deformation. (C) 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)