In the field of industrial manufacturing, enhancing the wear resistance of materials to address localized wear issues has become an important technical approach. Traditional cladding processes primarily serve the dual purpose of restoring part dimensions and strengthening surface performance. These technologies use various heat sources, including flames, arcs, and plasma arcs, to apply cladding materials onto the workpiece surface.

1. Fundamentals of Traditional Cladding Processes

The cladding layer accumulates on the workpiece surface under its own weight, forming a functional layer with excellent wear and corrosion resistance. Currently, in the implementation of cladding processes, tungsten carbide is commonly used as a key auxiliary material to prepare cladding-specific materials. These include two main types: tungsten carbide cladding electrodes and tungsten carbide welding wires.

Tungsten carbide cladding electrodes are primarily produced using two main technical approaches:

• Using low-carbon steel wire as the core material and adding tungsten carbide particles to the coating to enhance its functionality.
• Directly filling tungsten carbide particles into low-carbon steel or alloy steel pipes to form composite electrodes.

2. Cladding Methods and Technical Features

In addition to the tungsten carbide cladding material preparation methods, the mainstream cladding processes also include three typical methods: manual arc welding, oxyacetylene gas welding, and tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding.

The essential difference between these deposition welding methods is that tungsten carbide particles are not pre-deposited during the cladding process. As a result, the welding process leads to significant differences in burn-off and decarburization effects, causing variations in the final wear resistance performance of the cladded surface.

Manual arc welding uses parameters similar to conventional manual arc welding processes. For instance, with a 4.0mm diameter electrode, the cladding current is typically controlled around 170A, and the arc temperature can reach about 4000°C.

3. Thermal Impact Mechanism of Tungsten Carbide Particles

To achieve the desired wear enhancement effect, it is essential to consider the thermal behavior of tungsten carbide particles during the welding process:

• Fine tungsten carbide particles, due to their larger specific surface area, tend to experience severe burn-off during welding.
• After burn-off, fine particles regenerate into tungsten carbide crystals and other composite structures.
• Coarse tungsten carbide particles experience less burn-off, but a decarburization layer will form on their surface.
• The formation of this decarburization layer directly leads to a decrease in the wear resistance of the material.

4. Process Evaluation and Current Application Status

Given the above technical limitations, traditional methods have not achieved the ideal results in the deposition of tungsten carbide reinforced layers. However, due to their ease of operation and widespread equipment use, these methods are still applied in certain scenarios to a certain extent.

Greenstone-Tech is conducting in-depth research and technical optimization on traditional processes and is developing a new generation of laser cladding technology. This aims to overcome the inherent shortcomings of traditional methods and provide customers with more advanced surface enhancement solutions.