Laser Cladding Repair: Restore Worn Bearings to Brand-New Performance
Many large bearings are scrapped due to raceway pitting, wear, spalling, scratching and out-of-roundness. Bearing replacement involves extremely high costs and long procurement cycles. Conventional surfacing welding causes heavy deformation and cracks with unsatisfactory hardness. Thermal spraying suffers from poor bonding strength; the coating peels off after short service, leading to repeated repairs and rising costs. In fact, most raceway damages do not require scrapping or full bearing replacement.
Precision laser cladding repair has become the optimal solution for maintenance and remanufacturing of large bearing raceways. It balances precision, strength, wear resistance and service life to realize component regeneration and performance upgrade.
Conventional repair methods merely restore dimensions. They fail to address core problems including insufficient bonding strength, high residual stress and poor wear resistance, so the bearing will fail shortly after commissioning. Laser cladding repair: more than simple mending, it delivers performance upgrade.
Different from traditional surfacing welding, electroplating and thermal spraying, laser cladding creates metallurgical bonding. High-energy laser melts high-performance iron-based self-fluxing alloy powder and the raceway substrate for fusion, followed by rapid solidification.
The repaired raceway completely eliminates coating peeling, delamination and early-stage pitting failures.
Core Advantages of Laser Cladding Repair
🔥 Minimal thermal impact, no deformation
Precise localized heating with controllable heat-affected zone. Large workpieces stay free of deformation or warping without complicated correction, perfectly preserving bearing roundness and assembly accuracy.
🔥 Metallurgical bonding, no peeling
The coating fuses integrally with the substrate, featuring bonding strength far superior to traditional technologies. It fundamentally eliminates risks of coating peeling and stripping, suitable for continuous heavy-duty working conditions.
🔥 High hardness & wear resistance, doubled service life
High wear-resistant iron-based self-fluxing alloy powder is adopted. The cladding layer has dense and uniform microstructure with stable hardness. Its scratch resistance, fatigue resistance and wear resistance are greatly improved, achieving a longer service life than the original substrate.
🔥 Customized cladding, high repair precision
Material is precisely deposited on pitted, spalled and worn zones with low dilution rate and stable microstructure. After subsequent precision grinding, surface roughness and profile accuracy fully meet installation requirements.
New large bearings used in wind power, shield tunneling, mining and construction machinery are expensive and have long lead times.
Laser cladding remanufacturing costs only 30%–50% of a new bearing and greatly cuts downtime. No component replacement, low investment and high returns. It serves as a core solution for enterprises to reduce costs, improve efficiency and extend equipment service life.
Repair is not a makeshift fix. It enables used equipment to outperform new bearings at a lower cost.
Bearing Maintenance Case: The bearing raceway suffered severe wear. As this is an imported bearing with a high price and a 3-month delivery lead time, the customer’s requirements cannot be met by purchasing a new one. Therefore, laser cladding is adopted to restore the raceway dimension and improve its wear resistance, ultimately extending the service life of the bearing.
Laser cladding machine:
This laser cladding machine is the CNC based machine
we can programe the cladding path by the G-Code.
Laser cladding process parameters:
a. Alloy powder: Iron based self-fluxing alloy powder for laser cladding
Chemical composition (wt%)
C: 0.7～1.0; Cr:16～18; B:3.5～4.0; Si:3.0～4.0; Ni:10～13; Fe: balance; impurities S, P ≤0.03%.
Cladded layer hardness: HRC52-58
It delivers excellent wear resistance and scratch resistance, with good metallurgical compatibility with 42CrMo steel substrates. Multi-layer cladding can be performed to repair pitting, spalling and surface wear.
b. Laser power: 2400w
Turing speed: 700mm/min
Powder feeding: 20g/min
Laser spot: 4mm diameter
c. coating thickness: 1.5mm-1.7mm
Video about the laser cladding machine running:
Xian Yunding laser Technology Co., Ltd. is a professional factory in the laser cladding and hardening area in China. Our machine has been widely used in many industries such as coal mining machinery, metallurgical machinery, agricultural machinery, petroleum machinery, cutting teeth/shovel teeth, Automotive, injection molding machinery, valve industry, mold industry, power industry, bearing/bushing/shaft sleeve and repairing. In the Chinese application market, we Yunding Laser has the highest market share. We can provide the turnkey engineering project service for your needs.
For More information please visit: www.ydlasertech.com
whatsapp:+86-13851850644
Email: yundinglaser@straightening
john@ydlasertech.com
Yunding laser is committed to supplying high‑quality laser cladding machines for the industry.
