Repair of Gear by Laser Cladding Ni60 Alloy Powder: Process, Microstructure and Mechanical Performance

As the main mechanical transmission parts, the gears are usually exposed to wear, corrosion, and fatigue; their failure in a poor working environment may cause a huge economic loss and waste of resources. Laser cladding (LC) has been proven to quickly repair parts at good metallurgical bonding performance and has flexible scanning strategies and a wide material selection. Therefore, LC technology can be considered an ideal approach to repairing damaged gear. However, the repair of damaged teeth by LC has not been systematically reported. In this paper, a series of progressive works have been carried out to systematically investigate the repair process of broken gears by LC. Firstly, process parameters, overlapping ratio, and Z-increment for Ni60 powder on 20CrMnTi were optimized. Secondly, the effects of deposition strategies on morphologies of single-layer and multi-layer multi-tracks were carefully analyzed. Then, the gear repair was successfully realized based on obtained optimized parameters. Finally, the phase composition, microstructure, hardness, and wear properties of the repaired gear tooth were analyzed by XRD, SEM, microhardness tester, and friction and wear tester. The results show that the remanufactured tooth can recover its appearance before breakage. The repaired zone is mainly composed of γ-Ni, Cr7C3, Cr23C6, and CrB phases. The micro-hardness and wear volume loss of the repaired zone is 60.63 ± 1.23HRC and 1674.983 μm2, which are consistent with those of the other teeth. This study is expected to expand the application of LC technology and provide guidance to engineers in the repair of damaged parts.