Analysis of a Ni-Fe-Cr-Mo-Si hardfacing alloy manufactured by laser cladding: influence of the iron content on the wear resistance properties

Abstract In this article, we present an ongoing study on a Ni-Fe-Cr-Mo-Si based alloy, as one of the potential cobalt free hardfacing materials. Here, we analyze the effect of the variation of iron content on microstructure and wear property that is induced by a controlled dilution the 316L substrate, or by direct addition. First, we present the state of the art on the proposed Ni-Cr-Mo-Si based alloy. Then, the laser cladding setup is presented and the process parameter map search of the Ni-Fe-Cr-Mo-Si based alloy too. Then, iron is added to the base Ni-Cr-Mo-Si alloy by direct fusion of the powders coming from two different powder feeders and directly blended into the coaxial nozzle used. Finally the samples are analyzed in iron content, microhardness and microstructure. The tribology tests of the samples exhibit a clear change in wear behavior with the iron content and an improvement at a certain level of iron.