Wear Resistance Behaviour of Laser Additive Manufacture Materials: An Overview

Laser additive manufacturing technology is an exciting technology which is based on powder metallurgy and laser technologies that has come to revolutionize the way product are designed and produced. This important manufacturing technology has a number of advantages over the traditional manufacturing processes which include: ability to reduce weight of product and with improved functionality, ability to manufacture part as a composite material and with high complexity in a single manufacturing process. Some of additive manufacturing process can also be used to repair high valued part. Apart from these advantages, additive manufacturing technologies have been shown to have a high impact on the resulting properties of the manufactured materials which include the wear resistance behaviour. This paper presents an overview of the wear resistance behaviour of additive manufacture materials. The various classes of additive manufacturing technology are analyzed and presented. This study revealed that the wear resistance property of materials processed using additive manufacturing technologies can be improved by adjusting the processing parameters. Also the rapid cooling that is associated with this manufacturing process has a great influence in improving the wear resistance performance of the processed materials.