H&R Technology - LaserForge Material Enhancement Technology

The LaserForge™ Fundamental Advantages

- LaserForge™ Solid-state, metallurgical bond coating with extremely strong wave-shape interface morphology.

- Coating of highly dissimilar materials without dilution and negligible Heat Affected Zone (HAZ)

- Distortion free metal buildup for improvement or restoration of thin walled structures.

- 100% filler material capture.

LaserForge™ - Flat Wire Metal Deposition Process

This patented process uses an energy source such as a laser, to fuse a solid metal flat wire to a substrate. This is accomplished without a need to create a molten pool of metal on the work-piece prior to deposition unlike other metal deposition processes. As a result, HRT’s metal deposition process produces metal parts with an order of magnitude less heat input into the substrate.

LaserForge™ System

The first fully automatic, computer controlled DDM (Direct Digital Manufacturing) machine that includes scanning/reverse engineering, metal deposition, and post-deposition machining operations in one process and system.

TECHNOLOGY

LaserForge™ Flat-Wire Laser Deposition Vs.

Other Deposition Technologies

Bond Strength Comparison of Various

Metal Deposition Methods

Coating processes such as plasma spray or high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) methods produce a mechanical bond with a substrate and work well in applications where a component is subjected to compression loads only. In more demanding applications where a component is subjected to shear or bending stresses, the coating must have a metallurgical bond with a substrate.

Metallurgical bond welding can be produced with such welding methods as TIG, plasma, and laser powder deposition. But these welding methods apply a molten-pool at the parent metal for a time sufficient to result in melting and intermixing of elements of the alloys being joined. Such intermixing, especially with Aluminum alloys, has been observed to result in the creation of weak intermetallic compounds at the joint interface leading to cracking and flaking.

The molten-pool-free LaserForge™ patented process allows for a solid-state, dilution-free and distortion-free cladding, with >85% reduction in usage of advanced metals. As the result, LaserForge™ process is capable of successful, metallurgical bond strength coating of aluminum with high temperature alloys such as titanium or molybdenum. LaserForge™ cost-effective coating can also be done on curved 3-Dimensional surfaces.