The laser coating of stainless steel and tool steel with nanotitanium carbide and investigation of the wear behaviour coating layers

The purpose of this study is to coat the surface of stainless steels and tool steels by nano particle for improving the tribological properties of these materials. In order to improve the tribological properties of SS304 stainless steel and DIN 1.2344 X40CrMoV51 (H13) tool steel, nanotitanium carbide particles are produced to coat the surface by laser coating method. Nanotitanium carbide are produced with planetary ball milling by considering the 50:1 ball-powder ratio and 48 hours grinding time. Average size of the produced nanotitanium carbide particles are roughly around 10 nm. Two stage laser cladding method has been used in the experiments. First stage is that, nanotitanium powder is mixed in the resin then precoated on the surface of steels. After that laser beam melt the surface of metals and precoated nano particles to create a coating layer. The microscructure of coating layers is examined by scanning electron microscobe (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X ray difraction (XRD) and optic microscobe. In addition, the hardness of coating layers is measured by microhardness tests. The wear behaviour of layers is defined with microscratch test.Thorough analysis the obtained results show that surface of steels has higher hardness value and wear properties.