Laser cladding coating against erosion-corrosion wear and its application to mining machine parts

Erosion-corrosion wear is a common failure type for many mining machine parts. This paper introduces the erosion-corrosion wear resistant, nickel based alloy coating, which is manufactured onto AISI 1045 steel by laser cladding technology. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and microhardness testing were used to investigate the microstructure and hardness of the coating. After that, erosion-corrosion wear experiments were carried out on an MSH type erosion-corrosion wear tester to study the erosion-corrosion wear characteristics of the laser clad coating. 420 stainless steel was also tested under the same conditions as a contrast specimen. The slurry was made up of water and quartz, while sulphuric acid was added to create corrosive condition. Experiments were arranged to test the relation between erosion-corrosion wear rate, the acid concentration and slurry erosion speed. Finally this gaper introduces the application of laser cladding technology to balance plates of slurry pumps used in underground mining. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.