Achieving high surface integrity of Fe-based laser cladding coating by optimized temperature field-assisted ultrasonic burnishing

Laser cladding has been gaining more and more attentions. However, there exists rapid heating and solidification of cladding powder materials, and thus cladding coatings are usually coarse and have pores inside. As such, a new after-cladding treatment, i.e., Ultrasonic warm burnishing coupled with sequent heat treatment (UWB/HT), was experimentally tested and optimized. As a further study of previous work, the current research focuses on the effects of heating treatment parameters of UWB/HT on coating finishing. The study aims to improve the surface integrity of the tested Fe-based laser cladding coating by optimizing UWB/HT treatment. The result indicates that the surface integrity of cladding coating was positively correlated with heating temperature, while negatively correlated with holding time, and the cladding coating treated at 400 °C heating temperature and 0.5 h holding time exhibited the best surface integrity.