Laser hardening wear resistant coatings for your gears and bearings, you ask? Absolutely. Forget about tempering, cracking, even slower processing times. These are things of the past.

For decades, lasers have been used to increase metal resistance to wear. By delivering a specific energy to a localized surface, yet, now with minimal heat distortion. Bulk properties are retained, and you can gain a brand new micro-structure with improved wear properties.

This is especially true with surface modification techniques like laser hardening. These emerging processes are quickly proving reliable alternatives to other hard-facing processes, like heat treating or plasma nitriding.

Parameters such as power density or translation rate, and variables like atmosphere type or rate of material addition, can all shape surface characteristics. For example, care must be taken to avoid oxidation; otherwise, desired properties in the surface layer, such as thickness, composition and micro-structure, can all be compromised.

For highly-stressed alloys of gears and bearings, laser transformation hardening can be ideal. Ferrous metals are great conductors of heat. This means surfaces can be heated to austenitizing levels without loss in bulk properties of the material. And rapid heat loss means no outside quenching needed to form martensite at the heated surface.

Ultimately, with carbon steels, resistance to wear will be determined by the amount of ferrite or martensite. Those, in turn, will be determined by carbon level. Nevertheless, they present excellent alternatives to nitriding steel, any general nitriding process, or heat treat, which often require costly annealing operations to maintain geometric integrity, without distortion.

Next time you're designing your gear or bearing, take a closer look at laser hardening wear resistant coatings.