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ELSEVIER Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175
Abstract
The laser surface heat treatment technique is widely spread in industry for the treatment of the engineering parts. To
improve the heat treatment process, study of the heat transfer mechanism appropriate to the laser heating is necessary. The
present study develops an analytical solution to the laser heating process using the Fourier heat conduction model. The
temperature distribution inside the substance together with its variations in the direction perpendicular to surface are
predicted. The validity of the Fourier theory in laser heating is also discussed. To validate the theoretical predictions, the
measurement of surface temperature is carried out. The study is extended to include the effect of the laser output pulse
lengths.
0169-4332/97/$17.00 Copyright 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII S0169-4332(96)00570-3
168 B.S. Yilbas, .&Z Shuja /Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175
Two regimes are of interest in laser machining of transfer models for laser surface treatment have been
materials which correspond to low and high intensity presented previously [8-10] only a few [10,11] com-
irradiation. The terms low and high are relative and pare the simulation results directly with experiments.
apply when the machining processes are conduction Analysis of heat conduction in deep penetration
limited and non-conducting limited respectively, i.e. welding with a time-modulated laser beam was in-
material removal rates due to evaporation are consid- vestigated by Simon et al. [12]. They showed that the
ered in the non-conduction limited case. In general, time modulate laser beam had little influence on the
laser heat treatment of material surfaces is a conduc- resulting heat affected zone. Square-shaped tempera-
tion limited process. ture distribution induced by a Gaussian-shaped laser
On the other hand, the heat transfer mechanism beam was investigated by Lu [13]. He demonstrated
governing the laser processing is extremely impor- that the square shape of the temperature profile was
tant, since laser heating is of commercial interest almost of the same size as the original Gaussian
because of its ability to alter with accuracy the beam and did not depend on the incident laser power
properties of very localized surface regions without and the substrate properties. Laser heating of a two-
reprocessing the material as a whole. However, it is layer system is studied by E1-Adawi et al. [14] using
this scale of operation which makes in-situ accurate the Laplace integral transformed method. The time
predictions of the process variables so difficult. Con- required for the melting of thin films situated on the
sequently, it is the change of the microstructures and glass substance was computed. The results revealed
the mechanical as well as chemical properties of the that the melting time strongly depended on the film
surface treated that matters. Therefore, modelling the thermal properties. Heat conduction in a semi-in-
physical process can yield much insight into the finite solid when subjected to a spatially decaying
phenomena occurring within the region activated by instantaneous laser source was investigated by Zubair
the high-power laser beam. It should be noted that and Chaudhry [15]. They identified the instantaneous
the modelling can reduce substantially the time re- laser source by a Dirac function and showed that the
quired for process optimization, scale up, and con- conduction effect was dominant as the dimensionless
trol. distance ( x 6 ) increased. Diniz, Neto and Lima [16]
On the experimental side, considerable work has computed the temperature profiles inside the sub-
been carded out to improve the surface properties of stance subjected to high intensity and short pulse
engineering metals. Osawa et al. [4] studied the length laser irradiation using 3D heat conduction
effect of laser heat treatment on intergranular corro- equation. They discussed the applicability of the
sion of anstenitic stainless steel. They have con- model developed to the metals heated by a pulsed
cluded that corrosion properties improve consider- Nd:YAG laser. Laser pulse heating for the conduc-
ably after the laser heat treatment process~ Thermal tion limited process was investigated by Yilbas [17]
and microstructural analysis for laser surface harden- who demonstrated that pulse frequencies of the order
ing of steel was carried out by Toyol and Mukherjee of 1 kHz were needed for the integration of the
[5]. They conducted a parametric study, in determin- heating process, but left the prediction of cooling and
ing the most effecting parameters and developed a heating rates during the pulse heating.
correlation between hardness and laser process pa- In the light of the above arguments, the present
rameters. Li [6] investigated the application of laser study is carried out to predict the temperature rise at
surface modification techniques for engine parts. He the surface and inside the material using a Fourier
showed that the properties of the engine parts proper- heat transfer model for a step pulse input. Analytical
ties improved considerably when treated by a laser solutions are attempted to determine the heating and
beam. The thermal effect of the graphite phase in cooling rates and, later, non-dimensional empirical
cast iron was investigated by Liu [7] using a laser equations are developed in this regard. To validate
surface treatment technique. He demonstrated that the theoretical predictions an experiment is con-
the graphite phase could not play the role as a ducted to measure the surface temperature rise due to
thermal sink during the laser heating process. Nd:YAG laser irradiation of steel substrate. Since the
Although a number of conduction based heat Nd:YAG laser output pulse length is limited, three
B.S. Yilbas,.S.Z Shuja/Applied SurfaceScience108 (1997) 167-175 169
knowing that
~x2]+AIotexp(-tx)=pCp(~t) (2)
a2T IoSexp(-ax ) 1 aT
aX 2 "[- k c~ at (3)
o,
with the boundary conditions:
o
a-~x-xTx=0 = 0, T(m, t) = 0 and T( x, 0) = 0. 0 0.2 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Time (gs}
The solution of Eq. (3) becomes visible in the laser output power
r(x, 0 = - - -
Time (0.2#s/div)
Xerfc + ~ g exp( ozS2t - - 6x) Fig. 1. (a) A typical laser output pulse used in the theory. (b)
Actual laser output pulse monitored during experiment.
170 B.S. Yilbas,.S.Z. Shuja/Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175
Rearrangement of Eq. (4) gives: It is evident that dT(x, t ) / d x shall only be zero
at the surface, i.e. the maximum temperature occurs
T( x, t) = ----!/at ierfc at the surface.
It should be noted that in computing the tempera-
Io ture profiles, the identical power intensity distribu-
k6 exp( - 6 x ) tion was used as it was resulted from the Nd;AG
laser. The Nd:YAG laser output power intensity
I0 distribution and the power intensity distribution used
+ 2k6exp(a62t- 6x)
in the present computation are shown in Fig. 1.
X
3. E x p e r i m e n t a l
10
+ e x p ( a 6 2 t + 6x)
2k6 The experimental }etup is shown in Fig. 2. A
Nd:YAG laser delivering output energy in the range
xerfc av' + (5) of 5 - 2 0 J within 1.48 ms pulses was used to irradi-
ate the target. An energy power meter was employed
Eq. (5) gives the temperature profile inside the in the path to measure the instantaneous laser output
material for a given laser beam power intensity. It power. A condensing lens of 51 mm nominal focal
should be noted that, as the time tends to infinity, length was used to focus the laser beam on the
lim T ( x , t) = oo surface of the workpiece. A graduated barrel holding
t-+co the focusing lens was used to vary the focus setting.
Therefore, no steady state solution exists for the Consequently, power intensities as high as 1012
temperature distribution. The growth of the tempera- W / m 2 can be achieved by varying the focus setting
ture at the surface with time may be obtained setting of the lens. To measure the surface temperature of
x = 0 into Eq. (5), i.e.: the laser heated spot, K-type thermocouples were
used. This was accomplished such that a hole of
T(O, t)
about 0.5 m m in diameter was drilled with a laser in
a workpiece. The twisted ends of the thermocouple
- I 2 +exp(o~-62t)erfc(&/--t)-I were inserted into the hole drilled. The workpiece
k6 r
surface and thermocouple tips were ground down to
(6) the same level and, later, welded with a laser beam.
To avoid the influence of the magnetic field gener-
Differentiation of Eq. (5) with x gives the tem-
perature gradient inside the material, i.e.
---~-" ( a 6 2 t + 6x)
+ ~/expzK
Thermocouple
Xerfc 6 v r ~ + (7) Junction
Fig. 2. Experimentalsetup.
B.S. Yilbas, .S.Z. Shuja /Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175 171
steel
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
x8
nickel
time
Fig. 3. Thermocouple output.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
ated by the laser power supply, two glass slides were XS
Fig. 4 shows the temperature distribution pre- minimum value, in this case, the energy gain due to
dicted inside four different materials at different incident laser beam balances the conduction losses,
heating times. In general, the slope of the tempera- i.e. the internal energy of the substance remains
ture curves reduces as the heating progresses. When almost constant. In this case, the dimensionless dis-
comparing the temperature profiles corresponding to tance (x r) corresponding to this point may be de-
different materials it is evident that the material fined as the equilibrium distance and dT/dx be-
having low thermal diffusivity and absorption coeffi- c o m e s (dT/dx)min. In the third region the slope
cient results in steep temperature curves (Fig. 5), i.e. increases to reach almost zero. In this region conduc-
tantalum has a steeper temperature profile compared
to those corresponding to the other materials.
The variation of dT/dx with dimensionless length
(xfi) is shown in Fig. 6 for different materials. In
general, the slope of the curves decreases reaching
the minimum and then increases to attain almost zero
where the temperature profile becomes almost
asymptotic with x r. In this case, the behavior of
dT/dx with x6 may be distinguished into three
regions which are indicated in Fig. 6. In the first
region, the heat gain due to laser irradiation domi-
nates the conduction losses; i.e. the internal energy
increase is considerably high as compared to conduc- x~
tion losses. In the second region the slope has a Fig. 5. Temperature profile inside the materials.
172 B.S. Yilbas, .S.Z. Shuja /Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175
%
, i/}i t follows the laser heating pulse. As the heating pulse
increases ( d T / d X)eq reduces while (x 6 )eq increases.
However; at the tall of the heating pulse, both
(dT/dX)eq a n d (X~)e q increase. In this case, the
t I "'-.-.--4"" / conduction process inside the substance becomes
",,t I / i dominant. On the other hand, Fig, 8 shows the
"20 i ~ I \ 1 ~Region E I I . / f ~ i
variation of (x6)eq with (oz62t). This variation is
Ix"-.... I_ J
also in logarithmic form, therefore, the power rela-
-250.0i 0,1 1 100 1000 tion can be developed for the equilibrium distance
x6 and time, and it may be written as:
Fig. 6. Variation of d T / d x with dimensionless distance x&
(x~)~q = C[a~2t] m
tion losses are dominant and the energy gain due to where C is the constant and m is the power of the
the external field is insignificant, i.e. the internal dimensionless time.
energy decreases as the dimensionless distance in- This empirical relation is also true for the other
creases. When comparing the four materials, the materials employed in the calculations. It is evident
variation of d T / d x corresponding to tantalum is the that the effect of the pulse length is insignificant on
highest. This may again be due to the thermal prop- the variation of (x6)eq with a62t. This may be due
erties of tantalum, which has low thermal diffusivity, to the pulse lengths selected in the present study, i.e.
low absorption depth and high density. they are close in value.
OE+O0
-5E+07
-1E+08
-2E+08
-2E+08
-3E+08
4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5
(x~)~u~
io/ a oq = C(xa)e
1000
I i
y = 0.0065x 5~z8 ; I I -- I
R2 = 0.9991
I
I
/ I
100 t
x
steel
nickel
E
&tantalum
' r ! I
I I
! ]
EI ii
10
10
(x~)equ~
Fig. 9. V a r i a t i o n o f ( T ( x , t)/(lo/k6))eq with e q u i l i b r i u m d i s t a n c e ( X 6 ) e q.
174 B.S. Yilbas,.S.Z. Shuja/Applied Surface Science 108 (1997) 167-175
450
time of the pulse is much greater than this equilib-
400 =
350 : : : 1,1 a ; - r l
rium time. Since for most metals 10 6 _< 6 _< 108 1 / m
300 I~
:'7i i i i i ' ' and a = 10 -5 m2/s, then t r -~ 10 -5 s. For the laser
_% 250 pulsed heating process, where the pulse length is of
~--~
&
g-
200 - - - - - - tantalum the order of 10 -5 s, the material may be expected to
156 . . . . . . . nickel
follow the form of the incident pulse, whereas for
100 - - - - - - steel i
~ C ~ 1 I I I I I experimental Q-switched lasers whose pulse length is approxi-
Iii111111 /
50t/ I I I [ I : I I I ; [ ; I
oF4--tll~l~llll~ll mately 10 -9 s this may not be so and the analysis of
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 140000
the heat transfer process using the Fourier equation
a~2t
becomes invalid, in this case the heating process
4~o ! l N would be non-equilibrium. It is evident from Fig. 10
400 i:~ ='~ ==
that the both results predicted and obtained from the
300 .= = experiment are in good agreement. The small varia-
% 250 tion may be due to the measurement errors.
~" 200
o" .= ! ---- - - tantalum
~" 150 ~ -- - ..... nickel
100 .... steel
50 III experimental 5. Conclusions
0 , ::::!
20000 40000 60000 800{]0 100000 120000 140000
O{ 6 2 t ---~ 20000
In this case, T(0, t ) / ( l o / k r ) = 160. This implies References
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