1756 CHINESE JOURNAL OF LASERS / Vol. 35, No. 11 / November 10, 2008
Microstructure and formation mechanism of titanium
matrix composites coating on Ti-6Al-4V by laser cladding
Wei Niu
(
ÚÚÚ
)
1
,
Ronglu Sun
(
JJJ
¸¸¸
)
1,2
,
Yiwen Lei
(
XXX
©©©
)
1
,
and Xihua Guo
(
HHH
UUU
uuu
)
1
1
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300160
2
Tianjin Area Major Laboratory of Advanced Mechanical and Electronics Equipment Technology, Tianjin 300160
Received September 16, 2008; revised October 10, 2008
Abstract Titanium matrix composite coatings were fabricated on Ti-6Al-4V substrate by laser cladding
using powder mixtures of Ti+Cr
3
C
2
and Ti+TiB
2
, respectively. The chemical compositions and mi-
crostructures of the coatings were analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive
spectrometer (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Microhardness was measured by a microhardness tester.
The results showed that Cr
3
C
2
particles were dissolved and deposited to form dendritic TiC in the upper
section and spherical grain TiC in the bottom of Cr
3
C
2
+Ti coating. Most of TiB
2
was dissolved in the
molten pool by laser irradiation, then formed TiB with fine needles and coarse needles in the TiB
2
+Ti coat-
ing. A few quasi-melted TiB
2
particles with irregular shape at the bottom of the coating were observed.
The average microhardnesses were approximately HV850—HV1000, HV800—HV1050 in the Cr
3
C
2
+Ti
and TiB
2
+Ti coating, respectively, which were 2 − 3 times higher than that of Ti-6Al-4V substrate.
Key words laser technique; laser cladding; composites coating; microstructure; mechanism.
CLCN: TG 156.99 Document Code: A doi: 10.3788/CJL20083511.1756.
1. Introduction
Titanium alloy is an excellent material with high ratio
of strength to weight, good corrosion resistance, and good
toughness, however, it also has some disadvantages of
high friction and poor wear resistance. Recently, several
attempts have been made to improve the wear resistance
of Ti and Ti alloy by laser cladding
[1∼8]
. Ocel´ık et al.
[1]
injected WC and TiB
2
powders into the laser melted sur-
face of Ti-6Al-4V alloy and observed an increase in wear
resistance. Mridha
et al.
[2]
demonstrated that the in-
jection of SiC powder into laser surface melted titanium
alloys increased the microhardness of the melted zone
to HV600∼1200. Zhang et al.
[6]
investigated laser clad
coating of TiC-Cr
7
C
3
-Ti-Ni multiphase metal-ceramic
composite for improving the comprehensive properties
of the material. The results showed that laser cladding
could produce metal matrix composite layers with ce-
ramic particles on titanium alloy surface.
Titanium matrix composites (TMCs) with good wear
resistance are favorable materials in the aerospace in-
dustry. This paper investigates the laser clad TMCs
coating on Ti-6Al-4V alloy surface with powder mixtures
of Ti+Cr
3
C
2
and Ti+TiB
2
, and the microstructure, the
formation mechanism, and the microhardness of the com-
posites coating.
2. Experiment
Commercial Ti-6Al-4V alloy was used as the substrate
with size of 60×20×5 (mm). The chemical composition
of the alloy was 5.5 ∼ 6.8Al, 3.4 ∼ 4.5V (mass fraction),
and balance Ti. The sample surfaces were polished and
smoothed with emery paper and degreased with alcohol.
The powder mixtures used as the clad materials were
prepared from 25% Cr
3
C
2
+75 % Ti, 25% TiB
2
+75%
Ti (volume fraction). The particle sizes of Ti, Cr
3
C
2,
and TiB
2
powders were about 50, 40, and 40 µm, re-
spectively. The powder mixtures were pre-placed on the
specimen’s surface with thickness of 1.0 mm.
Laser cladding was performed on a 5 kW continuous
CO
2
laser processing system. The processing parameters
were laser power of 2.5 kW, laser beam diameter of 3
mm, scanning speed of 8 mm/s. As titanium alloys were
oxidized rapidly in the air at high temperature, argon gas
was used as shielding gas during laser cladding process.
Microstructure of the coating was examined with
an XJL-02 optical microscopy, and was observed by a
QUANTA200 scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with
an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Phase iden-
tification was carried out on a D8 X-ray diffractometer
(XRD) with Cu-Kα radiation operated at 40 kV and 20
mA. Microhardness was measured with a load of 1000 g
and a holding time of 15 s by using an HXD-1000 digital
microhardness tester.
3. Results and discussion
3.1 Microstructure of coating
Figures 1 and 2 show the surface and cross-section
morphologies of the laser clad coatings. The surfaces of
coatings are smooth and free from pore and crack, and
appears concave with wave. The boundaries of laser clad
Fig. 1. Surface morphologies of (a) Cr
3
C
2
+Ti and (b)
TiB
2
+Ti coatings.
0258-7025(2008)11-1756-04
c
2008 Chinese Journal of Lasers