Abstract
This research paper reports the effect of laser
power on the degree of porosity of the deposited tracks and
characterized the specific porous structure. The results
revealed that as the laser power was increased, the degree of
porosity was however reduced. Prior the characterization
process, titanium alloy and boron carbide (Ti6Al4V-B4C)
composites powder were deposited on Ti6Al4V substrate using
laser metal deposition (LMD) process through the application
of Ytterbium fibre laser system. The laser power was varied
between 800 W and 2400 W at interval of 200 W while all other
process parameters were kept constant. The maximum
capacity of this laser system is 3.0 KW which provides beam
size of 4 mm for the control characterization of the deposited
samples. After the deposition process, the samples were
sectioned for porosity analysis and microstructural studies.
The sectioned samples were however mounted, ground and
polished according to standard metallurgical preparation of
titanium alloys. The polished samples were then etched using
Kroll’s reagent. Porosity analysis was observed using the
optical microscope equipped with Analysis Docu Image
Processing Software (ADIPS) to establish the percentage
porosity and the maximum pore sizes of the composites...