Thermal modeling of CW laser materials processing using finite element method

In this work, a mathematical model of the laser material processing based upon the heat conduction equation is developed and solved by the finite element method. In this study, the process model is assumed to be in the quasi-steady state and laser beam power distribution to follow Gaussian distribution to get the best simulation of the temperature distribution, The convection effects are included in the two dimensional model. The keyhole concept is used to obtain abetter insight into the process, Finite element method is employed to solve the non-dimensionalized governing conduction equation, The effects of the incident laser power, the laser beam diameter, the shielding gas velocity, the beam speed and different type of material are investigated based upon the above model, The laser beam power, laser beam diameter, the moving speed and the type of material are: found to have more significant effects in the process. The shielding gas (i.e. the convection) velocity has little influence on the temperature distribution associated with the process. The results from the two-dimensional finite element model are compared with the temperature profiles obtained using a 3-dimensional finite-difference model.