Application of Laser Cladding Technology in the Repair of Wind Power Components

Laser cladding is a surface modification technology, also known as laser cladding or laser surfacing. It uses a high-energy laser as the heat source and alloy powder as the welding material. By synchronously applying the laser and alloy powder to the metal surface, rapid melting forms a molten pool, which then quickly solidifies to create a dense, uniform, and thickness-controllable metallurgical bonding layer. This significantly enhances the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, heat resistance, and oxidation resistance of the metal surface.

Compared to overlay welding, spraying, electroplating, and vapor deposition, laser cladding offers advantages such as low dilution, dense structure, excellent bonding between the coating and the substrate, a wide range of suitable cladding materials, and significant variations in particle size and content. The application prospects of laser cladding technology are very broad.

Based on current applications, laser cladding is primarily used in three areas:

1. Surface modification of materials, such as gas turbine blades, rollers, and gears;

2. Surface repair of products, such as rotors and molds. Relevant data indicate that the strength of repaired parts can reach over 90% of the original strength, with repair costs being less than one-fifth the price of replacement parts. More importantly, it shortens repair time and addresses the rapid repair needs of rotating components essential for the continuous and reliable operation of major complete sets of equipment in large enterprises.

3. Rapid prototyping, where layer-by-layer sintering and stacking of metal powder can quickly create models.

Wind power components are critical parts of large wind turbines. These include: hubs, bases, gearboxes, planetary carriers, nacelles, motor housings, fan flanges, and torque brackets.

During maintenance, wind power components such as main shafts and rotor frames are often found to be rough or severely worn. After applying this special repair technology, the secondary utilization rate of parts can be greatly improved, maintenance costs reduced, and the repair cycle for gearboxes shortened.

The laser cladding method for repairing parts is simple and reliable. The part repair process is as follows:

1. Remove the fatigue layer from the repair area of the wind power component, typically requiring local grinding or turning. This process has no special requirements for the surface roughness of the part.

2. Perform preheating treatment based on the material characteristics of the part to prevent defects such as cracks.

3. Conduct laser cladding on the preheated part. Guosheng Laser can clad layers ranging from 0.2mm to 10mm. If high hardness is required for the repair area, the cladding thickness can be relatively reduced because thicker cladding layers result in higher hardness. Without heat treatment, large-area cladding layers are prone to defects such as cracks.

4. After cladding, perform stress relief annealing and dye penetrant inspection to ensure the part is defect-free post-laser cladding.

5. Precise laser energy control ensures that the dilution rate of the cladding layer is kept within 3% by Guosheng Laser.

6. Process the cladding layer of the wind power component to meet the dimensional requirements specified in the drawings.

In addition to repairing various parts and molds, this technology can be widely applied to the rapid manufacturing of wear- and corrosion-resistant composite steel plates, surface modification of wear-resistant parts, repair of various failed components, and rapid manufacturing of high-performance composite material parts and molds. Its market potential is enormous, with very considerable economic benefits, making it highly promising for application and promotion.