Quantitative assessment method of thermal cycle accumulation mechanism during the pulsed laser single-channel multilayer cladding process

Abstract

Pulsed laser cladding provides a periodical thermal accumulation, enabling a greater temperature gradient and cooling rate inside the substrate, which can efficiently ameliorate the microstructure of the cladding layer. It is crucial to quantitatively investigate the mechanism of the interaction for the cladding process parameters on the transient evolution of the multi-field coupling to improve the cladding quality. In this paper, a 3-D model during the single-channel multilayer pulsed laser cladding process was constructed which is grounded on the temperature-variable physical properties parameters of the material. The integrated consideration in the masking impact of the molten powder waist beam on the pulsed laser beam, the molten pool liquid metal surface tension, the influence of buoyancy on the flow, and the transient evolution of the molten pool edge morphology. The temperature, flow, and stress fields of the single-channel multilayer cladding process were computed and resolved. The mechanism in multi-field coupling impact of laser pulse frequency, laser power, and pulse duty cycle on the single-channel multilayer cladding process was emphasized. The response surface equations between each influencing factor and the cladding temperature, temperature change gradient, and thermal stress were determined according to the response surface method, and the sensitivity of each parameter was attained from the Monte Carlo method. Using SEM to observe the profile and microstructure of the cladding layer, the material hardness distribution was measured experimentally, and the effectiveness of the model was confirmed. This research supplies an essential rationale for upgrading the quality of pulsed laser cladding layers.

Keywords:

• Pulsed laser cladding
• single-channel multilayer cladding
• response surface methodology
• multi-physics field coupling

Authors’ contributions

Chang Li acquired the grant and revised the paper; Xing Han performed modeling and wrote the paper; Han Sun extracted and analyzed the data.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The data that supports the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Applied Basic Research Program of Liaoning Province (2023JH2/101300226), Project for Graduate Education Reform and Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship of University of Science and Technology Liaoning (2023YJSCX02).