Analytical solution for the heat conduction mechanism appropriate to the laser heating process

In the application of pulsed laser material processing, such as laser hardening of metallic surfaces, conduction limited heating is the dominant mechanism during laser-workpiece interaction. Consequently, unsteady analysis of this problem becomes necessary. The present study examines the unsteady analysis of the conduction limited heat transfer process for an exponential pulse input with time dependent intensity. It is shown that, in the limit, the solution obtained in the present case reduces to that obtained for a step input.