Finite Element Analysis of Temperature Distribution During the Laser Heating of a Metal in a Liquid Medium: As Applied to the Specific Case of Laser Electrochemical Etching
Y-H. Long, L-C. Xiong and T-L. Shi
To understand fully the mechanism of laser electrochemical etching of metal, it is necessary to describe the temperature field induced by the laser heating within an appropriate liquid medium. For solving the complex problem of the laser heating a metal immersed in a liquid, the thermal phenomena adjacent to the metal-liquid interface were numerically investigated by means of irradiating a stainless steel sample with an 808 nm semiconductor laser (high power diode laser (HPDL)) beam immersed in distilled water and an electrolyte solution. A commercial finite element analysis (FEA) code (ABAQUS) was used to directly solve and model the temperature distribution on the surface of the stainless steel during semiconductor laser heating in distilled water. The experimental results confirmed the simulation trend. It was found from both the experimental work and the FEA simulation that the rise in temperature over the entire surface of the stainless steel affected by interaction with the HPDL laser beam was low; however, large temperature gradients in the HPDL-irradiated microzone were observed.
Keywords: High power diode laser (HPDL), laser electrochemical etching, explosive boiling, stainless steel, finite element analysis (FEA), ABAQUS