Alloying aluminum with Fe using laser induced plasma technique

• Main Authors: Alwafi, Yusef Abdul, Bidin, Noriah, Gustiono, Dwi, Harun, Sulaiman Wadi
• Format: Article
• Published: IOP Publishing 2012
• Subjects: QC Physics; TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/19924/; https://doi.org/10.1134/S1054660X12080026

A new surface modification technique is demonstrated using laser induced plasma (LIP) to increase the hardness of the surface layer. This LIP treatment provides a very high heating and fast cooling mechanism that can be used to form alloyed layer on a material surface. The hardness of the alloyed material is measured and the results show that the alloyed surface is 3 times as hard as the un-treated surface and a single Fe alloyed aluminum surface is harder than the one formed by the mixture of Fe and Cu. The microhardness of the alloy increases with the number of pulses at a rate of around 4 HV/pulse. The maximum hardness of 93.0 HV is obtained with the use of single Fe after exposure to 7 pulses of the laser.