M. Sami et Bs. Yilbas, 3-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRON-KINETIC THEORY APPROACH FOR LASER-HEATING - MOVING HEAT-SOURCE CONSIDERATION, Physica. A, 256(3-4), 1998, pp. 439-462
Lasers are extensively used for the heat treatment of engineering surf
aces. The simulation of laser heating may enhance the understanding of
the process parameters and yields insight into the phenomena occurrin
g within the region activated by the laser beam. Consequently, in the
present study, electron-kinetic theory approach is introduced to model
the three-dimensional laser heating process. However, the phase chang
e (melting) process is not considered in the present study due to the
fact that the temperature of the heated surface is usually kept below
the melting temperature of the substrate in most surface treatment pro
cesses. Since the energy equation derived is in the form of an integro
-differential equation, a numerical scheme using finite-difference app
roximation is employed. A laser beam with a constant velocity is consi
dered as scanning the workpiece surface. The study is extended to incl
ude three laser beam scanning velocities, therefore, the respective te
mperature fields are computed. To validate the theoretical predictions
, the surface temperature measurements are carried out. It is found th
at the surface temperature rises at low scanning velocities. In additi
on, the surface temperatures obtained from the measurements agree with
the theoretical predictions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All right
s reserved.