Laser Pulse Heating of Steel Surface: Consideration of Phase-Change Process

Abstract

Laser pulse heating and the phase-change process taking place in the region irradiated by a laser beam are considered. A numerical method is employed to predict temperature field and recessing velocities of evaporating and melting surfaces. An experiment is conducted to compare the cavity size obtained from experiment with the prediction. The prediction of the recession velocity of the evaporating surface is compared with the results of a one-dimensional closed-form solution. It is found that the mushy zones at the solid–liquid and liquid–vapor interfaces are visible at some depth below the irradiated surface. The recession velocity of the evaporating front velocity follows almost the temporal variation of the laser heating pulse; moreover, recession velocity of the solid–liquid interface is higher than that corresponding to the liquid–vapor interface. The cavity shape predicted from the present simulation agrees well with experiment. In addition, the prediction of the recession velocity of the evaporating surface agrees well with the closed-form solutions.

The authors acknowledge the support of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, for this work.