Optimization of Laser Marking on 304 Stainless Steel
M. Pandey and B. Doloi
One of the well-known processes utilized in the modern business for permanently identifying products, including specifications and logo branding of any organization or institute, is laser marking. Little effort has been made to optimize the different geometrical characteristics of laser marked surfaces which is needed for applications in laser marking of any product identity. In this work efforts were made to develop the mathematical model of the responses, analyse the parametric influence on the marking characteristics and to find the optimal setting of process variables for marking the surface of 304 stainless steel using a fibre laser with a beam spot diameter of 21 μm. The single- and multi-objective optimization were carried out on the responses using desirability function analysis. Results revealed that for multi-objective optimization a laser power of 10.6 W, duty cycle of 56.86%, scan rate of 7 mm/s and pulse rate of 60 kHz should be set for more advantageous marking features for marking a triangular shape.
Keywords: Fibre laser, 304 stainless steel, laser marking, geometry, operating parameters, area deviation, angle deviation, mark intensity, optimization, response surface methodology (RSM), analysis of variance (ANOVA)