Solid particle erosion of laser surface melted ductile cast iron

The article presents research on solid particle erosive wear resistance of ductile cast iron after laser surface melting. This surface treatment technology enables improvement of wear resistance of ductile cast iron surface. For the test ductile cast iron EN GJS-350-22 surface was processed by high power diode laser HPDL Rofin Sinar DL020. For the research single pass and multi pass laser melted surface layers were made. The macrostructure and microstructure of multi pass surface layers were analysed. The Vickers microhardness tests were proceeded for single pass and multi pass surface layers. The solid particle erosive test according to standard ASTM G76 - 04 with 30°, 60° and 90° impact angle was made for each multi pass surface layer. As a reference material in erosive test, base material EN GJS-350-22 was used. After the erosive test, worn surfaces observations were carried out on the Scanning Electron Microscope. Laser surface melting process of tested ductile cast iron resulted in maximum 3.7 times hardness increase caused by microstructure change. This caused the increase of erosive resistance in comparison to the base material.