Laser cladding of Co-based superalloy coatings: Comparative study between Nd:YAG laser and fibre laser

This paper presents a systematic comparison between the performance of a Yb:YAG monomode fibre laser and a Nd:YAG laser as energy sources in the side laser cladding technique. Experiments were performed with exactly the same working head and experimental configuration. Results obtained allow affirming that a high brightness laser is only useful when very narrow coatings are required. A conventional Nd:YAG laser is a suitable source for large area coatings. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.