Thermal analysis of laser heat treated engineering alloys

Lasers are widely used in industry for treating engineering surfaces owing to their precision, localised effects, and low cost of operation, In order to minimise operation time and optimise the heat treatment process, modelling of the heating process is necessary. The present study develops the heat transfer model relevant to the laser heating process. Models of conduction and non-conduction limited laser heating are introduced. The temperature rise inside the material is predicted for a number of engineering metals using both heat transfer models. The relation between dimensionless surface temperature and dimensionless time is established and discussed. Thermal efficiency of laser heating in the conduction and non-conduction limited cases is formulated and predicted from the temperature profiles obtained for a series of laser pulses hoving the same energy content.