Laser treatment of Rene-41: Thermal and microstructural analysis

Laser treatment of Rene 41 surface is carried out at high pressure environment of nitrogen. Temperature and stress fields are predicted using abaqus finite element code. Metallurgical and morphological changes in the laser treated layer are examined using optical and scanning electron microscopes (SEM). The residual stress formed at the surface vicinity is obtained by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. It is found that the predictions of the residual stress agree well with the results obtained from the XRD technique. Cellular or cellular dendritic structures with fine secondary dendrites are formed in the laser treated surface due to high cooling rates. In addition, γ′ particles formed are generally in cubic morphology with varying sizes.