Abrasive wear of carbide weld overlays for ground engaging tools

Carbide weld overlays are a proven remedy against abrasive wear for ground engaging components found for example in offshore, oil and gas, mining, agriculture and construction industry. A large number of the components are overlay welded by using PTA or laser cladding technology and nickel alloy – tungsten carbide powder mixes with 40 to 60% carbides. The overlays commonly achieve between 4 and 10 mm³ in abrasive wear according to ASTM G65 - Procedure A testing. This wear range is an illustration of how the abrasive wear can vary depending on welding parameters and practices, powder mix properties and other factors.

This investigation focuses on how the welding parameters affect the abrasive wear of the carbide overlay welds. The investigation is run as a round-robin test trial where a nickel alloy / carbide powder mix and a structural plain carbon steel blank were delivered to a number of overlay welding workshops for overlay welding according to their best practice. The sample overlays are then ground, ASTM G65 abrasive wear tested and metallographically investigated. The test results rank test samples in respect to wear and microstructure a review a state-of-art industry practice in carbide overlay welding