Abstract
Laser heat treatment of iron-base alloys is influenced by factors such as beam intensity profile, beam absorptance, heat conduction, and core microstructure of workpiece. In this article a number of techniques designed to improve the efficiency of the laser heat-treatment process are presented. Methods to obtain a laser beam profile with uniform intensity involve the use of beam-integrating optics with Fresnel number higher than 10. Approaches to increase beam absorptance involve the use of infrared energy-absorbing coatings or the use of linearly polarized laser beams. A numerical solution to the three-dimensional, time- dependent, heat conduction equation is used to calculate and experimentally validate the heat-affected and hardened zone profiles in finite-length workpieces. The numerical solution uses an implicit time- accurate finite-difference procedure based on Newton iteration and triple approximate factorization. Core microstructure influences the hardened depth that can be obtained by laser heat treatment. This is due to the influence of carbon diffusion distance for a specific core microstructure on the rate of structural transformation for surface hardening.
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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Gnanamuthu, D.S., Shankar, V.S. (1986). Laser Heat Treatment Of Iron-Base Alloys. In: Draper, C.W., Mazzoldi, P. (eds) Laser Surface Treatment of Metals. NATO ASI Series, vol 115. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4468-8_37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4468-8_37
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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