Product Code: JLA_8_6_317

Authors:
F. Meriaudeau
F. Truchetet
Laboratoire GERE — Universite´ de Bourgogne, 12 rue de la Fonderie, 71200 Le Creusot, France

The laser cladding process, which consists of adding a melted powder on to a substrate in order to improve or change the behavior of the material against corrosion or fatigue, involves many parameters. In order to produce good tracks some of these parameters need to be controlled during the process. We present a low cost system using two charge coupled device (CCD) matrix cameras. One camera provides surface temperature measurements while the other gives information about the powder distribution or geometric characteristics of the tracks. The surface temperature enables us — by use of the Beer–Lambert Law — to detect variations in the mass feed rate. Using such a system we are able to detect fluctuation of 2–3 g min⁻¹ in the mass flow rate. The other camera gives us information related to the powder distribution, a simple algorithm applied to the data acquired from the CCD matrix camera allows us to see very weak fluctuations within both gas fluxes (carriage or protection gas). During the process, this camera is also used to perform geometric measurements. The height and the width of the track are obtained in real time and enable the operator to obtain information related to the process parameters such as the speed of processing or the mass flow rate. We show the result of our system that allows enhancement of the efficiency of the laser cladding process. The conclusion is dedicated to a summary of the presented works and future expectations for this technique.