Surface heterostructuring of laser-clad 316L stainless steel through texture-driven deformation twinning

Heterostructured materials produced by surface modification have attracted considerable attention owing to their exceptional mechanical properties. Laser-cladding is one of the promising processes to achieve hetero-structures by creating a sandwich structure through a simple process. Herein, we propose a new strategy for designing heterostructured laser-clad materials containing dynamically reinforceable heterogeneity introduced through texture-engineering. The specific processing parameters for laser-cladding of 316L stainless steel were selected to induce a predominant crystallographic orientation favorable for twinning. The textured laser-clad alloy showed different textures between the coating and substrate regions, which exhibited a preferential orientation of < 111 > and < 100 >, respectively, along the loading direction. Plastic incompatibility was inten-sified due to the heterogeneous structure caused by the high dislocation density and localized deformation twinning in the coating region. Consequently, the present laser-clad alloys exhibited superior strength-ductility synergy compared to the other homogeneous materials, owing to the substantial hetero-deformation-induced hardening.

Automated summary

This study focuses on a new strategy for designing heterostructured laser-clad materials with dynamically reinforceable heterogeneity introduced through texture-engineering, achieving superior mechanical properties.