Collaboration

The IMCRC project was successfully finished in Q4 2022. Within the frame of the project novel highly wear resistant laser clad coating systems were developed in close cooperation with the Future Industries Institute of University of South Australia FII and a leading OEM for systems in the Mining Industry. The novel coatings exhibit an increased wear resistance over previously utilised coatings. These coatings will have to prove themselves in field trials which will be carried out in 2023.

Within the ARC LINKAGE project “Full-scale implementation of a new wheel-rail maintenance technology by using laser cladding”, which is being carried out in close cooperation with the Institute of Railway Technology of Monash University IRT & ANSTO, coatings development was carried out for applications in the Railway industry; investigations carried out by the IRT regarding coating quality, residual stresses and war resistance are very promising. In FY23-24 the project partners will focus on applying the best coatings resulting from previous work onto real life components for further investigations.

In the project P4 within the ARC Training Centre in Surface Engineering for Advanced Materials (SEAM) the partners focused on acoustic as well as optical diagnostic and control tools for Laser Cladding as well as the production of 2 ½ D features. The team has developed a prototype for acoustic emissions which is currently being validated and refined under “real life” conditions in LaserBond’s workshops. Equipment for visual process monitoring and control has been acquired; first testing will be carried out in in FY23-24. A second optical system focusing at the often inevitable pre heating in Laser Cladding was investigated and tested under real life conditions. It is currently in use at LaserBond’s workshop in South Australia when extremely critical parts are being produced such as special rollers for the steel mill industry – a product which also results from the close cooperation between FII and LaserBond.

Our R&D team was granted another publicly supported project, “High productivity laser cladding processes realised by process control for the development of protective claddings”, which commenced on 1/10/2023. Here, FII and the LaserBond R&D team, focus on high productivity and process robustness in Laser Cladding whereat the high quality of LaserBond’s laser clad coatings must be retained or even improved. So far, significant progress has been made for processing Ni-Superalloys, Ni-and Co-Hardalloys, where the deposition rates could be at least doubled. Some of the parameters were already transferred into the industrial daily routine to produce boiler tubes and rollers.