The contents of Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-020636 filed on Feb. 8, 2018 are incorporated in this application.

BACKGROUND

The present disclosure relates to a laser cladding apparatus for performing precise cladding by welding by way of laser light.

The laser cladding apparatus that performs cladding by heating and melting a cladding material powder with a laser beam, receives small heat input as compared to conventional arc welding and plasma welding, and can thus perform precise cladding.

As a laser processing head for laser cladding, what has been proposed so far is one in which a powder feeder for feeding a cladding material powder to a laser-beam irradiation part is provided separately from a processing head, as shown in JP-A-2003-340583, JP-A-2005-219060, JP-T-10-501463, and the like.

FIG. 5illustrates a common structure of the above laser processing head.

While an assist gas G is jetted around laser light12collected with an optical lens11or the like, a cladding material powder P is fed toward the laser light12, to form a heat-melting part M on the surface of a substrate.

A powder feeder provided separately from a processing head and a powder feeding passage2provided in the processing head are connected to each other with a flexible tube. This cladding material powder P is fed from the powder feeder through the flexible tube and the powder feeding passage2during cladding process.

In this structure, the feeding passage for the cladding material powder is complex, and this makes the apparatus expensive.

