Uniformly Dispersed Carbide Reinforcements in the Medium-Entropy High-Speed Steel Coatings by Wide-Band Laser Cladding

A medium-entropy high-speed steel (ME-HSS) coating with the 76 at.% of Fe and multiple alloying elements was prepared by the wide-band laser cladding. Compared with the commercial W6Mo5Cr4V2(M2) HSS coating which contains a large number of network lamellarM(2)C-type carbides along the grain boundaries, the presented ME-HSS coating has a high quantity of finer and more uniformly dispersedMC-type carbides; on the other hand, the coating has less retained austenite and much lower brittleness as well as similar secondary hardening effect and tempering hardness.