Wear behavior of laser metal deposited 17-4 PH SS-W composite at varied tungsten powder flow rate

This research studies the wear behavior of laser metal deposition of 17-4 PH SS-W composite using a 6 mm alumina-stainless steel ball under a load of 10 N, for 16 minutes, 40 seconds and with acquisition rate of 100 Hz conducted at 25 °C. The effect of laser power of between 2600 W and 1500 W; and powder flow rate of between 0.5 min⁻¹ and 2.0 min⁻¹ on wear resistance is investigated. Other processing parameters are constant throughout the experiments. The results show that the 17-4 PH SS-W composite produced at a high laser power of 2600 W exhibits a higher wear resistance as compared to the 17-4 PH SS-W composite samples produced at low laser power of 1500 W. The 17-4 PH SS-W composite sample produced at high laser power of 2600 W with tungsten powder flow rate of 2.0 min⁻¹ has the highest wear resistance with wear volume of 0.0276 mm³ and wear rate of 8.8 ⋅ 10⁻⁵ mm³/N m while the 17-4 PH SS-W composite sample produced at a low laser power of 1500 W with tungsten powder flow rate of 1.0 min⁻¹ has the wear volume of 0.02834 mm³ and wear rate of 9.0 ⋅ 10⁻⁵ mm³/N m.