Aiming at the nodulation phenomenon caused by low hardness of furnace rollers in the normalizing heat treatment furnace for electrical steel, which scratches the strip steel and affects the surface quality of electrical steel, laser cladding technology is used to clad Fe‑based powder on the roller surface. A micro‑convex rib cladding structure is designed to improve the roller surface hardness and prolong the nodulation cycle. The finite element models of single‑pass cladding and micro‑convex rib cladding on the surface of furnace rollers are established by using double ellipsoid heat source, and the accuracy of the models is verified by experiments. The results show that under the conditions of laser power 900W and scanning speed 3mm/s, the cladding temperature is concentrated at the spot position, showing a distribution characteristic of high front end and low back end. The residual stress of the micro‑convex rib structure is lower than that of the single‑pass cladding. The martensite content of the cladding layer decreases with the increase of depth, and the hardness decreases synchronously. The hardness of the cladding layer is about 900HV, which is 1.84 times higher than that of the matrix furnace roller. The friction coefficient of the cladding layer is lower than that of the roller surface matrix, and the wear volume is only 11.21% of that of the furnace roller, indicating that the wear resistance is significantly improved.