High-speed steel (HSS) is primarily used to manufacture cutting tools and roll materials for various machine tools. Improving the hardness, wear resistance, and corrosion resistance of HSS is of great significance to the development of the manufacturing and tool industries. The high-energy beams, consisting of laser, plasma beam, and electron beam processing (e.g., surface remelting, cladding, and alloying), have the advantageous characteristics of high heat source energy and good surface processing effect. The research status and perspective of the above three processing techniques on the surface properties (in particular, hardness, wear resistance, and corrosion resistance) of HSS is reviewed, and the principles, advantages, and disadvantages of the three strengthening methods are discussed. High-energy beam surface alloying appears to be the most cost-effective of HSS surface strengthening methods and is promising to receive increasing research attentions in the future.
Keywords: coating; corrosion; high-energy beam processing; high-speed steel; surface strengthening; wear.