Cavitation erosion resistance of AISI 316L stainless steel laser surface-modified with NiTi

The present study is part of a project on the surface modification of AISI 316 stainless steel using various forms of NiTi for enhancing cavitation erosion resistance. In this study, NiTi powder was preplaced on the AISI 316L substrate and melted with a high-power CW Nd:YAG laser. With appropriate laser processing parameters, an alloyed layer of a few hundred micrometers thick was formed and fusion bonded to the substrate without the formation of a brittle interface. EDS analysis showed that the layer contained Fe as the major constituent element while the XRD patterns of the surface showed an austenitic structure, similar to that of 316 stainless steel. The cavitation erosion resistance of the modified layer (316-NiTi-Laser) could reach about 29 times that of AISI 316L stainless steel. The improvement could be attributed to a much higher surface hardness and elasticity as revealed by instrumented nanoindentation tests. Among various types of samples, the cavitation erosion resistance was ranked in descending order as: NiTi plate > 316-NiTi-Laser > 316-NiTi-TIG > AISI 316L, where 316-NiTi-TIG stands for samples surfaced with the tungsten inert gas (TIG) process using NiTi wire. Though the laser-surfaced samples and the TIG-surfaced samples had similar indentation properties, the former exhibited a higher erosion resistance mainly because of a more homogeneous alloyed layer with much less defects. In both the laser-surfaced and TIG-surfaced samples, the superelastic behavior typical of austenitic NiTi was only partially retained and the superior cavitation erosion resistance was thus still not fully attained.