Mechanical response of a Laser Cladding repaired structure: localization of plastic strain due to microstructure gradient

Abstract

Laser Cladding is an additive manufacturing technology enabling to repair complex metallic components by removing the worn region and reconstructing locally the initial geometry. The aim of this work is to study the mechanical response of Inconel 718 repaired thin walls. More precisely, we perform an EBSD imaging and in-situ SEM tensile tests on specimen whose gauge section contains the interface between base material and repaired area. We observe the multiaxial strain patterns until failure at the grain level using a Digital Image Correlation method and superpose this pattern with the microstructure gradient induced by repair. The observations highlight a strain localization phenomenon in repaired structures mainly due to grain size effect.