Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Plasma metal deposition of stainless steel 316L over mild steel surface
Dhaneshwaran M. a, Srinivasa Chari V. b, Suyog Jhavar b,⇑
a
Mechanical Engineering, Atria Institute of Technology, Bangaluru 560024, VTU Belagavi, India
b
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Atria Institute of Technology, Bangaluru 560024, VTU Belagavi, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Plasma metal deposition (PMD) is an additive manufacturing process capable of layer by layer construc-
Available online 20 February 2021 tion, repair, and reconstruction of metallic parts. One of the important characteristics of cladding with
PMD is the ability to control the wire feed, plasma arc energy, thus allowing the melt pool to be con-
Keywords: trolled. In this paper stainless steel 316L was deposited in the form of wire on a block of mild steel.
Plasma metal deposition (PMD) Experiments were focused to infer the influence of plasma power, travel speed and wire feed rate on
Additive manufacturing the quality of track. Different parameters were varied to observe the various geometrical parameters
Surface cladding
and their relationship with the energy source and material feed rate was established. The results show
Aspect ratio
Parametric window
that plasma power and wire feed rate have a significant impact on height and width of the deposited
track. Aspect ratios ranging from 0.85 to 4.6 were obtained. Higher values of aspect ratio at lower wire
feed rates and at optimum plasma power was further used for deposition of defect free surface. An over-
lapping distance of 1.73 mm was used for surface cladding. This method can also be used for remanufac-
turing of surface of moulds and die.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific
committee of the 28th International Conference on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials.

1. Introduction
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a process of adding successive
layers of materials that are formed on top of each other. This paper
uses one such type of AM process, widely known as directed energy
deposition (DED) [1]. In the DED method, a concentrated energy
source and a flow of raw material (in this case wire) are made to
intersect at a focal point. High energy generated at a narrow point
leads to a rise in temperature which forms the melt pool. DED can
be further classified based on the type of energy sources being used
as plasma, laser, and electron-beam. This paper focuses on Plasma
Metal Deposition (PMD) using plasma as the energy source where
material is added in the form of wire for deposition [2]. Wire based
additive manufacturing possesses several advantages over powder
based additive manufacturing processes. An advantage of wire-
based deposition is its ability to deposit dense components and
avoiding defects such as un-melted powder particles, inclusions,
and porosity. Wire as feedstock also saves several recycling steps
thus preventing from contamination due to repeated sieving and
processing. One of the most dangerous aspect of powder deposition
is related to health issues. In PMD a plasma arc is used to form a melt
pool on the substrate and the material to be added is fused in succes-
sive layers to form a part. In this article, we have performed cladding
using PAM method. Cladding is a technique in which a layer of a
superior metal is coated on a base metal. Generally, cladding is uti-
lized for achieving a corrosion-resistant surface and to improve sur-
faces with necessary properties. The idea is to feed a layer of SS316L
metal onto a low cost and thicker base metal through the PAM tech-
nique. A layer of stainless steel 316L is deposited on carbon steel with
varying parameters so as to derive a parametric window and the
most suitable set of parameters will further be used to form smooth
clad surface to achieve the desirable properties [3]. These clads are
deposited by varying plasma power, travel speed, and wire feed rate.
Although there are published reports for stainless steel cladding on
mild steel, however none of them have conducted a detailed para-
metric study on SS316L clad on mild steel using plasma energy to
the best of author’s knowledge. The parametric investigation was
designed using Taguchi L27 approach performed to study the effect
of plasma power(Pe), travel speed(Vf), and wire feed rate (Wf) on
track geometry i.e. height (H), width (W) and aspect ratio.
2. Materials and methods

⇑ Corresponding author. A mild-steel plate of 225 mm
140 mm
12 mm is used as the

E-mail address: suyogjhavar@atria.edu (S. Jhavar). substrate. Mild steel was chosen because it is easily available and is

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.01.529
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th International Conference on
Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials.
M. Dhaneshwaran, V. Srinivasa Chari and S. Jhavar
cost-effective, however has poor mechanical properties in com-
pared to that of stainless steel (SS) but is the most used industrial
steel. Mild steel plate was cleaned with acetone prior to the pro-
cess. The surface of the mild steel was polished with A120 flap
disks and later 600 grit sandpaper is used for a smooth finish and
to do away with any foreign particles prior to deposition. Wire of
diameter 0.3 mm was used for the study. SS316L was chosen as
cladding material due to its better susceptibility to weld decay
(corrosion within the weld), its application in high-temperature
areas, 316L steel is an austenitic chromium-nickel stainless steel
that has 2–3% molybdenum in it. The chemical composition of
the deposition material and substrate is mentioned in Table 1.
2.1. Experimental setup
For the present study, we have used an indigenously developed
PAM setup constituting of a 3 axis CNC, a plasma power source, and
a stepper motor driven axial wire feeder. Plasma torch mounted
over the CNC has been controlled by an integrated software
through the computer. Two separate cylinders of Argon gas were
used for generating plasma as well as to provide a shielding atmo-
sphere for the deposition. The gas flow rate was kept constant
throughout the experiments as 3 L/min for shielding purpose and
0.5 L/min for generating pilot arc of plasma. Stand-off distance
between the substrate and plasma torch nozzle was also kept con-
stant at 4 mm. Wire feed angle was kept constant at 45◦ as referred
from previous literature [4]. Single tracks were deposited on the
mild steel substrate in an open atmosphere however, local shield-
ing was provided by creating argon atmosphere around the melt
pool [5]. Table2 presents the range of processing parameters and
their levels used for the experiments.
2.2. Experimental procedure
The experiments were performed in two phases: (a) prelimi-
nary experiments and (b) main experiments. The preliminary
experiments were performed to obtain the scope of three input
parameters namely plasma power (Pe), travel speed of troch (Vf),
and wire feed rate (Wf) for the main experiments, and to obtain
the ideal value of wire feed rate, standoff distance, argon gas flow
rate and argon shield gas flow rate for main experiments. Table 3
represents the parameters used during the experiments. The wire
feeding system which was developed indigenously was mounted
on z axis of the CNC machine and controlled by an integrated soft-
ware through the computer as shown in Fig. 1. The mild steel sub-
strate was kept on the worktable of the CNC. SS316L in the form of
wire rolled into a spool was fed to the wire feeding system.
Wire feeder was controlled by a stepper motor, programmed
using micro step controller. Three speeds were maintained to
obtain wire rate as 3200, 1400 and 800 mm/min, respectively. A
pilot arc was generated between torch and the nozzle through
means of plasma gas between them. Plasma was transferred to
the substrate by means of an additional circuit. Due to generation
of high energy, a melt pool was formed at the substrate and was
fused with wire being fed at the centre by means of the wire fee-
der. The length of the clad was maintained by the software control-
ling the CNC. The values of current were varied from 25 to 35A and
Table 1
The chemical compositions of the wire and substrate.
SS316L C Si Mn
0.08 0.25 0.81
Substrate C Cu Fe
0.25 0.2 98.0
1117
Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121
Table 2
Range of process parameters used for track deposition.
Parameter Unit Value
Plasma Power (Pe) Watt 625–875
Wire feed rate (Wf) mm/min 3200–800
Travel speed (Vf) mm/min 40–120
the voltage was kept at constant 25 V. All the clads were made
using the same procedure repeating thrice and the resulting obser-
vation was reported in Table 3.
2.3. Characterization
The deposited samples were cut in a cross-sectional manner
using a wire electro discharge machining (WEDM), with utmost
care to maintain the standard metallography practice. Track geom-
etry was analysed by observing the cross-sectional view of the
track as shown in Fig. 2. Etching was performed using aqua regia
and ethanol. Measurements were obtained using an optical micro-
scope, Leica DM IL compact inverted microscope for measuring the
height and width of the deposited track. These measurements were
again reconfirmed using AutoCAD software. Through visual exami-
nation, good continuous tracks were selected, and further observa-
tion was evaluated for plasma energy per unit length ‘Ep’ in J/mm
and material feed rate ‘Mr’ in g/min. These two parameters were
calculated using Eqs. (1) and (2), respectively. The aspect ratio
was calculated and compared with other parameters. Matrix of
the design was based on the Taguchi orthogonal array of L27 using
3 factors at 3 levels. These calculations are shown along with
observational data obtained from Table 3.
Fig. 3 shows three various types of deposition achieved at vary-
ing the input parameters. Fig. 3(a) represents discontinuous depo-
sition; Fig. 3(b) shows regular deposition; and Fig. 3(c) depicts wire
stubbing deposition. Wire dripping occurs due to insufficient
material interacts at high plasma power at melt pool region. In
wire stubbing zone lack of plasma power and high availability of
material at melt pool region leads to lower interaction time to melt
deposition material result in low bonding of clad material and sub-
strate. In smooth deposition region amount of plasma power and
material availability are optimum to for defect-free bonding
between substrate and deposition material.
3. Results and analysis
The initial pilot experiments were conducted by different com-
binations of input parameters varying the plasma power, travel
speed of the torch, and wire feed rate. Table 3 represents the var-
ious geometric parameters including width, height, and their visual
observation of deposited tracks. Fig. 3 shows top view of the depos-
ited track which is characterised as (a) discontinuous deposition,
(b) regular deposition and (c) as wire stubbing deposition. Initial
observation reveals that an irregular discontinuous deposition
was observed on material at lower wire feed rate as seen in Table 3.
It can be inferred from the table that at lower wire feed rate and
high travel speed irregular and discontinuous track geometry is
formed despite varying the plasma power. This can be attributed
P Cr Ni Mo Fe
0.014 16.68 10.08 2.06 Bal.
Mn Si S P
1.03 0.280 0.05 0.04
M. Dhaneshwaran, V. Srinivasa Chari and S. Jhavar Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121

Table 3
Input parameters used in the experiments.

Experimentnumber Power ‘Pe’ Wire feed rate ‘Wf’ (mm/ Travel Speed ’Vf’ (mm/ Deposited track height Deposited track width Observation
(W) min) min) ‘H’(mm) ‘W’(mm)
1 625 3200 40 1.59 1.64 Regular deposit
2 750 3200 40 1.7 2.46 Regular deposit
3 875 3200 40 1.59 2.99 Regular deposit
4 625 3200 80 1.4 1.19 Regular deposit
5 750 3200 80 1.39 1.82 Regular deposit
6 875 3200 80 1.26 2.44 Regular deposit
7 625 3200 120 – – Non-uniform
deposit
8 750 3200 120 0.82 0.94 Regular deposit
9 875 3200 120 0.86 1.98 Regular deposit
10 625 1400 40 1.07 1.45 Regular deposit
11 750 1400 40 1.32 2.08 Regular deposit
12 875 1400 40 1.03 1.64 Regular deposit
13 625 1400 80 0.86 3.01 Non-uniform
deposit
14 750 1400 80 0.4 1.17 Regular deposit
15 875 1400 80 0.3 1.01 Regular deposit
16 625 1400 120 – – Non-uniform
deposit
17 750 1400 120 0.48 2.21 Regular deposit
18 875 1400 120 0.5 1.99 Regular deposit
19 625 800 40 – – Non-uniform
deposit
20 750 800 40 – – Non-uniform
deposit
21 875 800 40 – – Non-uniform
deposit
22 625 800 80 – – Non-uniform
deposit
23 750 800 80 – – Non-uniform
deposit
24 875 800 80 – – Non-uniform
deposit
25 625 800 120 – – Non-uniform
deposit
26 750 800 120 0.5 2.2 Regular deposit
27 875 800 120 – – Non-uniform
deposit

Fig. 1. Plasma system setup used for experimentation.

as high travel speed (Vf) of troch and lower material availability at
melt pool with varying plasma power caused insufficient energy at
melt pool which resulted in improper melting and discontinued
and irregular tracks. Hence these samples were not considered
for further observation. Similarly, at lower plasma power and
higher wire feed rate, irregular deposits were also observed due
to excessive availability of material at lower power in the melt
pool. Regular and smooth depositions were observed at the opti-
mum levels of all the three input parameters, which are high-
lighted in Table 3 and discussed briefly in later sections.
A strong and logical conclusion is yet to be derived from the
observed results. It is evident from the data that regular deposition
is a result of a combination of parameters and not by varying any
one parameter. Hence for the ease of understanding these relation-

1118
M. Dhaneshwaran, V. Srinivasa Chari and S. Jhavar Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121

3.1. 3.1 Parametric study of track geometry

From the twenty-seven parameters, fifteen parametric combi-

nations were chosen based on the observations made in Table 3
as regular deposition. Aspect ratio was calculated through data
obtained in Table 3 by a simple equation as shown in Eq. (3), where
‘W’ stands for width of deposited track and ‘H’ stands for height of
the deposited track. Tracks were then characterized into two cate-
gories namely continuous deposition with aspect ratio > 1.5 and
continuous deposition with aspect ratio < 1.5. Aspect ratio
of < 1.5 was found favourable for making smooth clad surface with
minimum defects.
Aspect Ratio ¼ W=H ð3Þ

Fig. 2. Track geometry.

3.1.1. Effect of travel speed on track height
As discussed in earlier results, it was evident that at higher
plasma power and lower wire feed rate discontinuous deposition
was obtained whereas at lower power and higher wire feed rate
wire stubbing deposition was obtained. Therefore, it can be
inferred that travel speed is the most influencing parameter for
the formation of geometrical parameters like width ‘W’ and height
‘H’ of the deposited track. Fig. 4 displays the variation of track
height with respect to variation in travel speed. It was noticed that
as the travel speed increased the height of the track deposited
reduced. This phenomenon can be observed during high speed of
travel the energy exchange between substrate and plasma source
is reduced which resulted in lower dilution (intermixing of base
material with deposition material) and lesser availability of mate-
rial per area which in turns forms smaller melt pool.

Fig. 3. (a) Discontinuous deposition; (b) Regular deposition; (c) Wire subbing 3.1.2. Effect of travel speed on track width
deposition. Fig. 5 shows the changes in width of track with respect to
change in travel speed. It was seen that with an increase in travel
speed there was reduction in width of the deposited track. This is
due to increased travel speed for given power and wire feed rate,
ships two parameters named, plasma energy per unit length (J/ will result in smaller melt pool and therefore forming reduced
mm) and material feed rate (g/min) were derived. These parame- width of the deposited track. As also observed from Fig. 5 the min-
ters were calculated using Eqs. (1) and (2). These calculated values imum track width obtained is 1 mm, this can be attributed to the
are shown in Table 4. fact that the plasma beam diameter was 1 mm and therefore no
60Pe track with <1 mm was obtained. However, this was not the case
E p ðJ=mmÞ ¼ with height as height >1 mm was also observed at higher travel
Vf ð1Þ
speed.

3.1.3. Effect of energy density and material feed rate on aspect ratio
qpd2 l
M r ðg=minÞ ¼ ð2Þ Aspect ratio is an important factor to be considered as it can
Vf
avoid porosity due to proportionate overlap between two subse-

Table 4
Aspect ratio corresponds to plasma energy and material feed rate.

Experiment Plasma energy per unit Material feed rate aspect

number length ‘Ep’ (J/mm) ‘Mr’ (g/min) Ratio
1 937.5 1.814081244 1.03
2 1125 1.814081244 1.45
3 1312.5 1.814081244 1.88
4 468.75 1.814081244 0.85
5 562.5 1.814081244 1.31
6 656.25 1.814081244 1.94
8 375 1.814081244 1.15
9 437.5 1.814081244 2.3
10 937.5 0.7936605442 1.36
11 1125 0.7936605442 1.58
12 1312.5 0.7936605442 1.59
14 562.5 0.7936605442 2.93
15 656.25 0.7936605442 3.37
17 375 0.7936605442 4.6
18 437.5 0.7936605442 3.98
Fig. 4. Effect of travel speed on track height.

1119
M. Dhaneshwaran, V. Srinivasa Chari and S. Jhavar
Fig. 5. Effect of travel speed on track width.
Fig. 6. The effect of (a) energy density; (b) material feed rate, on aspect ratio.
Fig. 7. The effect of energy density and material deposition rate on the type of deposition.
1120
Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121
quent layers while making a surface with multiple tracks [6].
Hence is a vital factor to be considered as an output parameter.
Fig. 6a represents aspect ratios formed at various rates of plasma
energy supplied at unit length. It was found that the aspect ratio
varied from 0.85 to 4.6, it can be however noted that the higher
values of aspect ratios are favourable for forming defect free sur-
face. It was also observed that the increase in plasma energy per
unit length affect aspect ratio inversely, which is unusual in clad-
ding. As inferred from Table 4 that material feed rate also plays
an important role in determining the aspect ratio. As when plasma
power is high (1312.5 J/mm) aspect ratio was found to be low
(1.88), and when aspect ratio was high (4.6) plasma power was
found to be low (375 J/mm), this phenomena can be attributed to
be a result of difference in material feed rate. This therefore, reiter-
ates the importance of material feed rate, hence, for deeper under-
standing of the relationship, aspect ratio was also plotted against
material feed rate as shown in Fig. 6b. The figure clearly demon-
strates that lower feed rate results in high aspect ratio and higher
material feed rate resulted in lower aspect ratio. Therefore, it can
be concluded that the optimum combination of parameters are
M. Dhaneshwaran, V. Srinivasa Chari and S. Jhavar
Fig. 8. Cladding surface produced through plasma metal deposition.
those where, the material feed rate is low, plasma energy is opti-
mum and aspect ratio is high for preparation of defect free clad
surface.
3.2. Formulation of parametric window
A parametric window has been plotted with all the 27 experi-
ments for obtaining the combination of optimum parameters for
making a defect free surface. As it was seen in earlier section that
aspect ratio increases with decrease in material feed rate, hence it
becomes imperative to understand that to what point can we drop
the material feed rate and achieve regular deposition. Similarly,
Aspect ratio also increases with decrease in plasma power, there-
fore it needs to be ascertained that till which values can the plasma
power be lowered to achieve regular deposition. Therefore, for ease
of understanding Fig. 7 was drawn showing all the 27 experiments
in relation to plasma power and material feed rate as both directly
influence the aspect ratio. In the graph three zones have been iden-
tified as (i) discontinuous tracks denoted by triangles, (ii) continu-
ous tracks with high aspect ratio denoted by dots and (iii)
continuous tracks with low aspect ratio denoted by squares. It
can be clearly seen that continuous tracks with high aspect ratio
are most suited for making a defect free surface.
3.3. Surface cladding
Fig. 8 shows the top view of the surface formed through plasma
metal deposition using optimum combination of input parameters
derived from the parametric window. Here we have used experi-
ment no. 17 to clad the surface. In this experiment the plasma
power was at the optimum value of 750 W, the material feed rate
was 1400 mm/min and travel speed were 120 mm/min. The track
geometries were considered to be elliptical in shape and an over-
lapping distance of 1.73 mm was calculated from past literature
[7]. The clad surface was found to be regular and smooth with no
visible defects on the surface. The developed cladding will be used
for the formation of 3D component and future research.
4. Conclusion
This paper reports an effective parametric study for cladding of
SS316L on a mild steel substrate. The results of the experiments
were demonstrated in a parametric window, the experiment cho-
sen for single layer surface cladding was one having high aspect
ratio and optimum input parameters. The deposition was done in
a manner so that the tracks were overlapping. The following con-
clusion were made from the study:
1121
Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 1116–1121
 Optimum input parameters with the optimum value of plasma
power was 750 W, the material feed rate was 1400 mm/min and
travel speed was 120 mm/min.
 At higher travel speed we noticed wire dripping and poor aspect
ratio.
 It was observed that as the travel speed increased the height
and width of the deposited track reduced.
 Lower material feed rate results in high aspect ratio and higher
material feed rate resulted in lower aspect ratio corresponding
to its plasma energy per unit length.
 Therefore, it can be concluded that the optimum combination of
parameters are those where, the material feed rate is low,
plasma energy is optimum and aspect ratio is high for prepara-
tion of defect free clad surface.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the technical and financial support
from Center of Excellence in Additive Manufacturing at Atria institute
of Technology.
References
[1] J.C. Haley, B. Zheng, U.S. Bertoli, A.D. Dupuy, J.M. Schoenung, E.J. Lavernia,
Working distance passive stability in laser directed energy deposition additive
manufacturing, Mater. Des. 161 (2019) 86–94, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.matdes.2018.11.021.
[2] Jhavar S, Jain NK. Development of micro-plasma wire deposition process for
layered manufacturing: B. Katalinic editor. DAAAM International Scientific
Book, Vienna: DAAAM International; 2014, p. 239-256. https://doi.org/
10.2507/daaam.scibook.2014.20.
[3] R.A. Rahman Rashid, S. Abaspour, S. Palanisamy, N. Matthews, M.S. Dargusch,
Metallurgical and geometrical characterisation of the 316L stainless steel clad
deposited on a mild steel substrate, Surf Coatings Technol 327 (2017) 174–184,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2017.08.013.
[4] T.E. Abioye, J. Folkes, A.T. Clare, A parametric study of inconel 625 wire laser
deposition, J. Mater. Process Technol. 213 (12) (2013) 2145–2151, https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.06.007.
[5] S. Jhavar, C.P. Paul, N.K. Jain, Micro-plasma transferred arc additive
manufacturing for die and mold surface remanufacturing, JOM 68 (7) (2016)
1801–1809, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-016-1932-z.
[6] P. Wen, Z. Feng, S. Zheng, Formation quality optimization of laser hot wire
cladding for repairing martensite precipitation hardening stainless steel, Opt.
Laser Technol. 65 (2015) 180–188, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
optlastec.2014.07.017.
[7] S. Jhavar, N.K. Jain, C.P. Paul, Enhancement of deposition quality in micro-
plasma transferred arc deposition process, Mater. Manuf. Process 29 (8) (2014)
1017–1023, https://doi.org/10.1080/10426914.2014.892984.