2021 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 50-55
A Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) has been proved a potential technique for the fabrication of tool steel. Commercially available H13 tool steel powders were used to build a rectangular deposit in two ways of laser cladding. Assuming solid cooling of hot–working die, the base plate was a 10mm–thick pure copper. By parallel line scans of ϕ1.1 laser beam, gas–fed powders were deposited and ended up a chevron shape. Alternatively 8mm–oscillated beam scan was dragged on laid powder layers, and nearly rectangular shape was obtained with stacking seven 1mm–thick powder layers. The heat input 2.5kJ/g is necessary for the shaping, and laser power has to be controlled considering the heat from a previous layer. A convolute interface was formed with a copper plate and the hardness of martensite microstructure was mostly higher than that of quenched and tempered H13 except the lower few layers.
