Laser cladding with wire feeding method for die and mould maintenance

In this paper a laser cladding technique focused on repairing dies and moulds is presented. Nowadays die and moulds are repaired using traditional welding techniques, such as TIG or plasma-arc welding. These techniques can produce large heat affected zones due to the high temperature and the amount of melted material, which can lead on a microstructure change of the heat affected zone. In this work, a laser cladding technique with a commercial wire feeder is proposed. In order to test the capability of this method on die and moulds repairing, a high power diode laser has been installed on a conventional three axis CNC milling centre that allows both machining and material deposition with the laser techiques.Some test have been done on tempered tool steel in order to obtain the relationship between laser-wire feeder parameters and clad geometry.