A study of laser surface modification for GCr 15 steel

An experimental study has been undertaken to investigate the applicable feasibility of using a JK701H Nd:YAG laser to produce a highly surface properties on GCr15 steel, which could be used as a surface hardening, and high corrosion resistance workpiece. The parameters that varied with different testing parameters include scanning speed, incident laser power and focal position in laser modifying. Various trends of the surface features in terms of the varying process parameters are analyzed and shown to be reasonable. Discussions are also given on surface micro hardness, structure and their qualities related to corrosion resistance of the modification surface in situations where variable modifying parameters are analyzed. The method of anodic polarization curves are adopted for corrosion measurement, where the corrosion resistance of GCr15 steel after laser modifying was increased up to 8.3%. It shows that the effects and patterns of varying process parameters on micro-hardness and corrosion resistance have provided a deeper understanding of the laser modification.