Simulation of surface heat treatment with inclined laser beam

The beam inclination leads to a change in the laser spot size on the material surface. The higher the inclination, the larger the irradiated area and the lower the laser intensity. Moreover, if the material surface is outside of the beam focal plane, the intensity distribution profile becomes asymmetric. In this study, a heat source model, which calculates the intensity distribution on the workpiece surface as a function of beam parameters (beam waist, divergence half-angle) and process parameters (laser power, incidence angle, and distance to focal plane) was developed. The applicability of the heat source model was demonstrated by simulating 4 different laser hardening regimes. Once the heat efficiency coefficient had been calibrated the developed finite-element model allowed computation of temperatures while hardening with perpendicular laser beams as well as with inclined beams. The open-source software FEniCSx was used for the finite element computations. The mathematical formulation, required for performing temperature simulations with FEniCSx was briefly introduced.