Statistical-experimental modeling of the effect of process parameters on geometric characteristics of laser cladding of stellite 6 on SS316 using second-order regression

Applications of 316 stainless steel can be developed by laser cladding of the Co-based superalloys, which has multiple enhancement properties and creates a small heat affected zone. Quantitive investigation of the effect of process parameters on geometrical features and providing reliable models to achieve the desirable metallurgical bond, minimal structural defects, and predicting the dimensions of the geometry without conducting excessive experimental tests are an important issue. This study evaluate the effects of the main process parameters of laser cladding on geometric characteristics of stellite 6 using the response surface methodology. A quadratic model was developed for each of the geometric characteristics. Laser power, scanning speed, and powder feed rate ranged between 400 and 600 W, 6–10 mm/s and 12–20 gr/min, respectively, were considered as the input variables and height, width, penetration depth and dilution were considered as responses. The experiments were designed using the box-behnken method. The accuracy and fitness of the models were evaluated using analysis of variance method. The results indicated the R² factors obtained for height, width, penetration depth and dilution are equal to 0.89, 0.98, 0.98 and 0.96 respectively. After obtaining the desirability factor of 0.795, the optimal set of process parameters were selected as laser power of 510 W, scanning speed of 10 mm/s and powder feed rate of 13 gr/min. Verification of the optimization was done by performing experimental test,which maximum 13 % difference between actual values and the predicted values was obtained.