Experimental study of laser cladding process and prediction of process parameters by artificial neural network (ANN)

Laser cladding of powder mixture of TiN and SS304 is carried out on an SS304 substrate with the help of fibre laser. The experiments are performed on SS304, as per the Taguchi orthogonal array (L¹⁶) by different combinations of controllable parameters (microhardness and clad thickness). The microhardness and clad thickness are recorded at all the experimental runs and studied using Taguchi S/N ratio and the optimum controllable parametric combination is obtained. However, an artificial neural network (ANN) identifies different sets of optimal combinations from Taguchi method but they both got almost the same clad thickness and hardness values. The micro-hardness of cladded layer is found to be 6.22 times (HV_0.5752) the SS304 hardness (HV_0.5121). The presence of nitride ceramics results in a higher micro hardness. The cladded surface is free from cracks and pores. The average clad thickness is found to be around 0.6 mm.