Investigation of microstructure evolution and electromagnetic shielding mechanism of absorbed MWCNTs-FeCo composites by one-step in situ deposition using high-speed laser cladding

Electromagnetic shielding materials can inhibit or reduce the harm of electromagnetic radiation and have become an important means to protect against electromagnetic pollution. In order to overcome the inconveniences of in situ or conformal manufacturing on the specific equipment, and the resulting assembly errors lead to the reduction of electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE). As a new technology, high-speed laser cladding can directly design multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-FeCo alloy composites as absorbents, and it is the first time to realize the rapid manufacturing of electromagnetic shielding materials by one-step in-situ deposition without adding auxiliary materials. According to the temperature field and stress field, it is found that the through-crack defects of electromagnetic shielding coating mainly resulted from the residual stress concentration of microcracks near the bottom fusion line. When the cladding strategy is 1600 W power deposition after preheating at 400 °C, a high-quality cladding layer can be obtained. When the addition of MWCNTs is 1.5 wt%, the material exhibits good electromagnetic shielding performance under the synergistic effect of dielectric loss, conductivity loss, and magnetic loss. And the average EMI SE is 23 dB in the range of 2-18GH. The research shows that high-speed laser cladding can simultaneously meet the requirements of flexible material design and efficient preparation, which realizes the integration of electromagnetic shielding material design and manufacturing.