Study of wear processes generated by cavitation phenomena produced by laser induced dielectric breakdown on borided and non-borided 316L stainless steel surfaces in bi-distilled water

[Display omitted] •The boriding treatment produces the FeB and Fe2B layers on a 316L stainless steel substrate.•The study of the cavitation wear using laser process combinates the thermal and impact effects on the surfaces.•The boriding process improves tribological properties. This work presents a study of the wear of borided and non-borided 316L stainless steel surfaces produced by the cavitation and thermal effects caused by the laser induced dielectric breakdown using bi-distilled water as the dielectric medium. A pulsed beam of a high-power laser was focused at a different distance between the surfaces and the focus spot in a parallel configuration. The wear produced on the non-borided surface presented the combination of both cavitation and thermal effects that decreased with the increase of the surface-focus spot distance. On the other hand, the borided surfaces showed a higher thermal resistance due to that worn areas presented just the erosion of the material by the cavitation process, as revealed by the microstructure of the boride surfaces.