Theeffectivenessoflaserplasmamaterialprocesses.docVIP

The Effectiveness of Laser Plasma Material Processes B. Medres, L.Shepeleva, W.D.Kaplan and M. Bamberger Abstract A mathematical model for solution of the one-dimensioned thermal conductance problem of the laser surface treatment of steels without melting is presented. The simulations were carried out for polished surface and for chemically etched surface in order to increase the absorption coefficient. The experiments were carried out using a CW-CO2 laser with maximum power of ( 9kW. Cylinder of 40 mm and 200 mm long made from AISI4140 steel was used as a sample. The sample was mounted on a computer-controlled table and rotated with the speed in the range of 0-3 cm/sec. It is shown that a simple analytical expression model yields a good correlation between the calculated data and the experimental values. Therefore, the simple mathematical model presented can be used for the development of new processing technologies. Key words: Laser-plasma, optical discharge. Introduction Detailed study of these processes revealed some characteristic phenomena (continuous optical gas breakdown (COGB), waves of a light’s burn (WLB), etc taking place within a reaction zone under certain conditions [2,3]. It was shown that these processes operating within the laser beam reaction zone negatively influence laser cutting and welding [2]. This was caused by the interaction between the focused laser beam and evaporated metal particles (much smaller than laser radiation wave length) resulted in laser beam defocusing. Such defocusing decreases the effective heating power and, correspondingly, the efficiency of treatment. . Gas discharge doesn’t occur at atmospheric pressure due to the easy escape of electrons from the focal volume region. Heating the target by laser radiation results in emission of photo- and thermal electrons from it. Therefore, the critical power density value for discharge decreases from 109 W/cm2 in the case of target absence to 106-107 W/cm2 when a target presents [