White Paper Effective February 2016

Laser cladding protection of

hydraulic cylinders
Author name: Introduction
Umar Farooq
Eaton When hydraulic cylinders are exposed to harsh
operating environments, corrosion protection plays
a crucial role in the reliability and durability of the
equipment. Without proper protection, hydraulic
equipment can suffer pitting, crevice development,
and other forms of corrosion, leading to inefficient
operations, equipment failures, unwanted down
times, and sometimes catastrophic consequences.
Eatonite® Anti-Corrosion Laser Cladding, a high-
performance, field-repairable coating, has proven
highly effective in protecting hydraulic cylinders in
demanding applications and environments.
Why protection is crucial
Hydraulic cylinders are often called upon to do
heavy lifting in harsh environments. In off-shore oil
rigs, saltwater environments often subject
equipment to corrosive conditions [1, 2].
Other marine applications, such as drilling and
dredging, also face corrosive conditions. Land-
based hydraulic cylinder applications, such as
construction, manufacturing, and power plant
equipment, may operate in less corrosive
conditions, but encounter dust, dirt, and other
elements, necessitating coating protection of
cylinder rods and other equipment. Laser cladding
provides protection for a variety of applications,
including:
• Energy (oil, power stations, windmills)
• Marine (cranes, drilling, dredging)
• Industry (process machinery, milling, mining)
Depending on the application, hydraulic equipment
can encounter various environmental factors, as
summarized in Table 1.

Table 1: Environmental factors per EN-ISO 12944-2 [3]

Brackish and saltwater Marine atmosphere

Industrial Potable and
Environment atmosphere fresh water Splashzone Submerged Open Sheltered Soil
Corrosivity Very low - very high Low – medium Very high High Very high High - very high Low
Category C1, C2, C3, C4, C5-I Im1 C5-M / Im2 Im2 C5-M C5-M Im3
Environmental Industrial condition Rain water and Seawater Seawater Seawater Local seawater
characteristic (e.g. SO2, salinity) treated water (estuaries in the open salts and salts and varying
and coastal oceans varying humidity levels
areas) humidity
levels
Salinity 1 - 300 ppm 1.5-3.5% 2.5 - 3.5% 2.5 - 7% 2.5 - 15% 2.5-3.5%
pH 6-9 7.5 - 8.5 7.5 - 8.5 6-9 3-9 7-9
Temperature
(degrees C) 1-3 -2 to 30 -2 to 30 -20 to 50 -20 to 50 -2 to 30
Humidity, RH ----------- 100% ---------- 30 -100 % 10 -100 % -------

Low to
Pollution Low Low Low Low to high Low to high
medium
* Categories defined as follows:
C1: Very low C2: Low C3: Medium C4: High C5-I: Very high (industrial) C5-M: Very high (marine)
Im1: Immersion in fresh water Im2: Immersion in sea Im3: Buried in soil
or brackish water
White paper Laser cladding protection of
February 2016 hydraulic cylinders

Hydraulic equipment can also incur damage from material handling.
Impacts from swinging chains and cables, falling debris, or dropped
equipment can produce unwanted nicks, dents, and cracks, leading
to corrosion and leakage. By coating cylinder rods and other
equipment with Eatonite laser cladding, damage from material
handling can be minimized, and even repaired in the field .
Laser cladding can have both short-term and long-term economic
benefits. As a field-repairable technique, laser cladding can reduce
repair cost and down time. The increased durability of properly
coated equipment can improve reliability, reducing operating
expenses and total cost of equipment ownership over the life of the
equipment. For example, a day rate in oil production (the amount
a drilling contractor gets paid for a day of operating a drilling rig)
can range from $200,000 to $600,000 for a floating rig[4]. For each
day of down time, costs can quickly skyrocket, emphasizing the
importance of equipment reliability.
How it works
Laser cladding[5] produces a metallic coating with a strong
metallurgical bond between the coating layer and a substrate
material such as carbon steel in case of cylinder rods. Using precise,
state-of-the-art lasers such as the high power diode laser (HPDL)
as a controllable heat source, metallic powder is injected into the
system by nozzles. Energy from the laser beam produces a shallow,
molten cladding pool. Filler material powder is injected into the
beam and the pool. As the laser beam passes through the area,
the cladding pool solidifies rapidly, leaving the desired build-up of
cladding material with minimal dilution of the base material. Care
must be taken to keep the heat-affected zone (HAZ) soft enough to
avoid brittleness and potential delamination with the substrate.
Microhardness (HV)
Resisting cracks, wear, and other failures
Prevention of cracks, wear, and fatigue in hydraulic equipment is
critical in many fields. With a typical hydraulic cylinder, a piston
connected to a piston rod moves back and forth in a cylindrical
barrel. A hydraulic pump brings in a fixed or regulated flow of
hydraulic fluid, typically oil, to the hydraulic cylinder, to move the
piston. Wear and corrosion resistance are particularly crucial on the
outer diameter of the piston rod.
Different operating conditions present different challenges to
hydraulic cylinder equipment. Corrosion, impact from debris,
bending, high temperatures, and various combinations of these
conditions may be encountered.
With a surface hardness approaching 450 HV (Vickers Hardness
Number), Eatonite laser cladding is highly resistant to wear and
scratches. A comparison of Eatonite laser cladding hardness with
other coating technologies is shown in Figure 2. The microhardness
chart shows how Eatonite laser cladding is hard at the outer surface
but follows a smooth transition curve to become soft at the HAZ.
Other coatings may be either soft at the surface, indicating low
wear resistance, or reach a plateau just below the surface, indicating
possible issues with disbonding/delamination.
Laser cladding microhardness summary
550
500
Competitor S 50 HRC
45 HRC
450

Eatonite
The result is a protective coating with high ductility, resistance to 40 HRC
400
bending, high strength, and numerous other characteristics, as
shown in Figure 1. When compared with other types of coatings,
Eatonite laser cladding offers the following: 350 35 HRC
Competitor C
• Optimized corrosion, wear, scratch, and impact resistance
300 30 HRC
• Consistent coating depth Competitor U

• Strong adhesion due to the metallurgical bond 250

Competitor I 20 HRC

• Hardness throughout depth and length without cracking

• Optimized ductility and toughness 200
0.000 0.010 0.020 0.030 0.040 0.050
• Optimized surface characteristics designed for longer seal life Depth (inches)
• Certified production welds tested both destructively and Figure 2: Comparison of Eatonite laser cladding with other coating technologies.
non-destructively before and after the weld to verify
Eatonite laser cladding also provides high impact resistance — up
superior quality
to 24 foot-pounds of energy without cracking. Spray-type coatings,
such as high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) coatings typically top
0.01 Inch out at only 8 foot-pounds of impact energy without cracking. In
non-technical terms, when struck with a ballpeen hammer, Eatonite
laser cladding may dent, but will not crack. With a bond strength
exceeding the strength of the steel base metal (>50,000 psi),
Micro-hardness
Eatonite laser cladding will also not spall or chip. In comparison, if
indentations not cracks
an HVOF thermal spray coating is struck with the same ballpeen
hammer, the HVOF or hard chrome plating or plasma sprayed
ceramics will crack and spall.
1350 µm
Eatonite laser cladding’s ductility provides high flexibility without
cracking. The product can be applied to cylinder rods up to 21
meters long without cracking and can withstand up to 180-degree
bends, as shown in Figure 3.

Eatonite cladded on S355J2 carbon steel

base material 100X

Figure 1: Eatonite cladding exhibits excellent quality! No cracks or pores,

smooth substrate adhesion, uniform coating thickness, zero dilution.

2 EATON www.eaton.com
Laser cladding protection of White paper
hydraulic cylinders February 2016

Figure 3: Eatonite laser cladding’s ductility provides flexibility without cracking.

Combining strength, high ductility, and minimal porosity,

Eatonite laser cladding can help avoid fatigue cracks and limit the
propagation of other flaws like solidification or shrink cracks, as
shown in Figure 4.

Discontinuities
in coating Impact damage
Rod coating Cracks Water ingress into the discontinuities

Cylinder rod

Corrosion causes the bond

to fail, the coating falls off

Water reaches the bondline

initiating corrosion
Figure 4: Cross sectional view of the rod coating indicating large cracks (red arrows),
porosity (blue arrows) and corrosion in scalloped bond line (black circle)

EATON www.eaton.com 3
White paper
February 2016
Field repairable
A key distinguishing trait of Eatonite laser cladding is its field
repairability. Using common welding processes, Eatonite laser
cladding can be repaired on site, saving significant time and money.
Depending on whether the damage is impact or linear, as shown
in Figure 5, different tools and techniques can be used. In general,
an in-line die grinder with carbide burs, a right angle die grinder, a
cleaning solvent to remove oil and grease, and appropriate welding
tools are the key tools. Proper training is required prior to conducting
any field repairs of laser cladding.
Figure 5: Deep linear discontinuities like cracks and gouges require weld
repair as shown above in a linear impact.
Seal compatibility of coating
The tribological interaction between rod surface, seals, and various
fluids used in hydraulic systems can present challenges. System
requirements such as pressure, temperature, velocity, friction,
lubricity, fluid media, and frequency of operation all play vital roles
in determining the seal choices. One seal system may work well
in a certain application, but not in another. For that reason, proper
seal selection with rod coating surface finish parameters is key to
ensuring long-term satisfactory performance [6].
As technologies such as laser cladding have advanced, expectations
for surface finish and seal life have risen. Various seal manufacturers
establish product-specific surface finish requirements, but most
specify additional parameters such as Rp (peak height), Tp (material
bearing ratio), and Rz (average of largest peak to valley sums).
To design the optimized parameters for Eatonite laser cladding
surface finish, a detailed testing program was established. The
program has run millions of cycles of testing (each run is 2 million
cycles) with various fluids to establish optimized parameters for
various applications. Surface finish requirements include the key
surface finish parameters tailored to the application needs. Due
to these extensive research efforts, no cylinders using Eatonite
laser-cladded rods have ever been returned to the factory due to
leakages.
Certifications
Eatonite laser cladding has been certified by international
organizations such as the Norwegian Det Norske Veritas (DNV) [7],
as shown in Figure 6.
Eatonite L1 Laser Cladding became the first DNV-certified laser clad
coating certified by passing all testing requirements outlined by
the Joint Industry Project (JIP) in the “Guideline for Qualification of
Wear and Corrosion Protection Surface Materials for Piston Rods.”
Established by international oil and gas manufacturers, operators,
contractors, and suppliers, this standard established recommended
practices for documenting requirements for major subsea components.
4 EATON www.eaton.com
Laser cladding protection of
hydraulic cylinders
Figure 6: Eatonite laser cladding was the first DNV-certified laser clad coating.
The specific tests performed included:
• Saline Droplet Test (DNV-C1)
• Electrochemical Porosity Test (DNV-C2)
• Resistance to Rapid Deformation (DNV-M1)
• Hardness testing (DNV-M2) - Hardness & HAZ
• Dynamic Bend test (DNV-M3)
• Metallographic examination (composition, cracks, thickness,
microstructure, porosity, content and slag-oxide content)
• Surface roughness, surface finish and optical imaging dye
penetrant
• Wear Abrasion Testing
• Anodic polarization, critical pitting temperature and critical crevice
temperature tests
The successful results can be attributed to tight process control,
along with high powder quality and laser cladding.
Comparison of coating technologies
A summary of laser cladding properties compared with other
coating technologies is shown in Table 2. Plasma sprays and HVOF
type coatings are generally harder but exhibit high porosity, low
bond strength, low impact resistance, and brittleness. To minimize
porosity in these coatings, an additional operation such as chemical
sealant is often applied, but this can lead to inconsistent pore sealing
and evaporation of sealants at high temperatures. When Eatonite
laser cladding was certified by DNV, the DNV rods exhibited less
than 0.02 percent porosity. In contrast, the best HVOF has porosity
ranging from 0.3 to 1 percent, with most HVOF coatings containing
2 to 5 percent porosity. Also, chrome plating is often cracked as
manufactured. The low bond strength and low impact resistance can
lead to delamination and spall offs. Plasma Transferred Arc (PTA) is a
process similar to laser cladding but with moderately high porosity
content and higher dilution. Dilution is defined as the amount of
mixing of the clad and the base/substrate materials. A low dilution
value is preferred to obtain a surface that is similar to that of clad
Laser cladding protection of White paper
hydraulic cylinders February 2016

material, and the clad material properties are fully preserved [8].
Laser cladding is categorized as a “low hydrogen” welding process.
The cladding pool (melt zone) is protected by a shielding of the inert
gas Argon. The powder flow lines feeding the laser cladding torch
also deliver Argon. In some applications, the coaxial flow of Argon
is augmented with an additional trailing gas shield. In this manner
there is no pumping of elemental Hydrogen into the heat affected
zone of the steel base metal. With Eatonite laser cladding, post-
cladding baking of the finished hydraulic cylinder rod is not needed.
As such, hydrogen embrittlement common with chrome plating is a
non-issue with Eatonite laser cladding.
Eatonite laser cladding provides outstanding resistance to stress
corrosion cracking (SCC). In this regard, laser clad Eatonite laser
cladding resists SCC better than other products such as cobalt-based
or nickel-based coatings

Table 2: Comparison of laser cladding with other coating technologies

Compare coating Plasma spraying HVOF PTA Laser cladding
Nontransferred Transferred
Heat source Combustion flame Focused laser beam
electric arc electric arc
0.05 to 0.50 mm 0.12 to 0.70 mm 0.64 to 1.90 mm 0.40 to 1.90 mm
Coating thickness
(0.002 to 0.020 inch) (0.005 to 0.028 inch) (0.025 to 0.075 inch) (0.015 to 0.075 inch)
Bond type Mechanical Mechanical Fusion weld Fusion weld
2,500 PS typical < 13,000 psi > 50,000 psi > 50,000 psi
Bond strength
(17.2 Mpa) (89.6 MPa) (> 344.7 Mpa) (> 344.7 Mpa)
Behavior Brittle, easily cracked Brittle, easily cracked Ductile, no cracks Ductile, no cracks
Porosity content 3% to 10% 0.5% to 5 % 0.5% to 2 % 0.05% to 0.5 %
Dilution None None 3% to 12% 0.5% to 2%
Topcoat materials Ceramics CoCrWC Inconel 625 Inconel 625
• Chromia-Titania NiCrBSi Ultimet Eatonite
• Alumina-Titania NiCr-CrC Stellite (all) Ultimet
• Zirconia Stellite (all)
Metals
• NiCr80/20
Bond coat materials None None None
• NiAl
• MCrAlY

Laser cladding is essentially free of constituents deemed harmful About Eaton

to the environment. Conventional rod coatings such as hard chrome
plating (HCP) often include toxic chemicals such as hexavalent Eaton is a power management company with 2014 sales of $22.6
chromium. Regulations such as the European Union Registration, billion. Eaton provides energy-efficient solutions that help customers
Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) effectively manage electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical power
include measures to eventually phase HCP out. more efficiently, safely, and sustainably. Eaton has approximately
102,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than
Conclusion 175 countries. For more information on Eatonite Anti-Corrosion Laser
Laser cladding provides a high-performance, environmentally friendly Cladding, visit www.eaton.com/Eatonite.
coating solution in protecting hydraulic cylinders. Eatonite laser
About the author
cladding provides a fully proven, field-repairable, coating with all
the necessary ingredients to replace the traditional coatings and Umar Farooq is global engineering manager for cylinder business at
successfully meet customer needs in the harshest of operating Eaton Hydraulics. He holds a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering
environments. and has experience in control and vibration systems. In his present
role, he has been involved in developing and implementing surface
References
technologies to hydraulic systems, particularly on cylinder rod
1. “Premature Failure of Riser Tensioner Piston Rods Exposed to surface coating technologies.
Offshore Splash Zone Operation – Status and Review of Critical
Multi-degradation Factors,” by C. Ohe, R. Johnsen, and N. Acknowledgements
Espallargas, paper 09199 in 2009 NACE Corrosion Conference The author wishes to thank Mike Killian, principal engineer in Eaton’s
and Expo. corporate research and technology group, for his guidance on various
2. “The piston rod — simple, yet critical,” aspects of coating technologies. Any opinions, findings, conclusions,
http://hydraulicspneumatics.com, October 13, 2010. or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
3. “Guideline for Qualification of Wear and Corrosion Protection author and may not necessarily reflect the position of Eaton.
Surface Materials for Piston Rods” DNV Report No. 2009-3295.
4. http://www.rigzone.com/data/dayrates/, November 20, 2015.
5. Laser Cladding by Ehsan Toyserkani, Amir Khajepour, Stephen F.
Corbin, CRC Press, New York, 2005.
6. “How piston-rod coatings affect hydraulic seals,”
http://machinedesign.com.
7. https://www.dnvgl.com/
8. “FEM modeling and experimental verification for dilution control
in laser cladding,” by J.T. Hofman, D.F. de Lange, B. Pathiraj, and J.
Meijer in Journal of Materials Processing Technology,
pp 187- 196, Vol 211, Issue 2, Feb 2011.

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