A New Two-Step Method for Laser Cladding of Silicon Carbide in Wc-Co Substrates

WC-Co cutting tools are widely used by the metalworking industry. In order to improve the properties of these tools, research on the application of wear-resistant coatings, such as polycrystalline diamond, are of great importance to several applications. It is known that the occurrence of high-stress levels between the coating and the substrate can lead to adhesion failures. One strategy to minimize these failures is applying an intermediate layer of SiC. In this work, the deposition of a SiC layer was carried out by a novel two-step laser cladding approach. Instead of cladding directly the pre-synthesized SiC on the substrates, a 200 µm silicon powder layer was pre-deposited on the WC-Co substrates and then irradiated with a 30 W CO2 laser. To improve metallurgical bonding between the tungsten and the Si layer, all substrates were chemically attacked. This attack allows cobalt removal from the surface and increases surface roughness, improving the laser cladding process. After the SiC laser cladding, samples were coated with a 200 µm graphite powder layer and irradiated again by a CO2 laser. The samples were characterized by SEM, EDS, and XRD analysis. The results showed that in the first step, an irradiation energy of about 0.27 J was enough to fuse the silicon powder to the substrate and in the second step, 0.13 J was enough to promote the reaction between silicon, carbon and the WC substrate, resulting in the in-situ synthesis of SiC. Finally, a new method was proposed for the deposition of SiC on WC-Co based substrates and the observed results allowed the proposal of an empirical equation to describe the chemical reactions of the process.