A Study of cladding technology on tube wall surface by a hand-held laser torch

Terada, Takaya; Nishimura, Akihiko  ; Oka, Kiyoshi; Moriyama, Taku*; Matsuda, Hiroyasu*

New maintenance technique was proposed using a hand-held laser torch for aging chemical plants and power plants. The hand-held laser torch was specially designed to be able to access limited tubular space in various cases. A composite-type optical fiberscope was composed of a center fiber for beam delivery and surrounded fibers for visible image delivery. Laser irradiation on a work pieces with the best accuracy of filler wire was carried out. And, we found that the optimized wire-feed speed was 2 mm/s in laser cladding. We succeeded to make a line clad on the inner wall of 23 mm tube. This technique was discussed to be applied to the maintenance for cracks or corrosions of tubes in various harsh environments.