A study into effects of CO₂ laser melting of nitrided Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Multiple treatment of engineering surfaces can provide improved surface properties that cannot be obtained by a single surface treatment. Consequently, this study investigates the effects of laser melting on the microstructures of plasma nitrided Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The study consists of two parts. In the first part, governing equations pertinent to the laser melting process are developed, and temperature variation across the melted zone is predicted. In the second, an experiment is conducted to nitride the surface of the alloy through plasma nitriding process and to melt the plasma nitrided and the untreated alloy surfaces with a CO₂ laser beam. The resulting metallurgical changes are examined using x-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. It is shown that three distinct nitride layers are formed in the vicinity of the alloy surface prior to the laser melting process, and that after the melting process nitrided species are depleted while cellular and dendritic structures are formed. In addition, the structure consisting of transformed β containing coarse and fine acicular α is observed in the melted regions.