Laser Cladding of Titanium Alloys: A Review

Over the years, titanium and titanium alloys have seen a rise in choice of material for many industries such as, biomedical, automotive, aerospace, marine, energy, and chemical industries. The main reason for the demand for titanium is its great combination of properties; excellent corrosion resistance, fatigue strength, low density, biocompatibility, high fracture toughness, and easy formability. TiAl4V is the most popular of the titanium alloys not only because of its excellent properties but also because it is by far the most studied alloy of all the titanium alloys. This gives the alloy a great advantage as it is continuously investigated through different processing techniques for better and improved performance. Processing techniques for the fabrication of titanium and titanium alloys include both conventional, still and additive manufacturing methods. Plenty research shows that conventional ways result in wasted time, energy and material hence more and more investment has gone into alternative ways over the past decade. The paper reviews the additive manufacturing method, laser cladding. This is a technique employed for surface modification of metallic tools which is mainly used when abrasive and corrosive behaviour is the required specification for application. Unfortunately, despite its excellent exhibition of properties, titanium is not without shortfalls, in the tribology-related industry, titanium fails to uphold good performance for surface hardness, friction coefficient and wear which limits their popularity and application. For this reason, the continual research and investigation for the enhancement of Ti6Al4V alloy is of great importance. This review is a collection of investigations that have been attempted with the objective of improving the problems of the titanium metals through laser cladding. The findings are reviewed and summarized.