Investigation of Temperature Distribution During CO2 Laser and Fibre Laser Processing of a Si3N4 Engineering Ceramic by Means of a Computational and Experimental Approach
P.P. Shukla and J. Lawrence
Temperature distribution was measured using experiments means and modelled by employing a computational method for CO2 and fibre laser surface treatment of a Si3N4 engineering ceramic. The temperature of the CO2 laser surface treatment was 42% lower in comparison with that of the fibre laser. Both the bulk and the surface temperatures for the finite element model (FEM) were higher for the fibre laser surface treatment in comparison with the CO2 laser surface treatment. Not only the this was due to the difference in the wavelengths but also the laser-beam brightness of the two lasers during the laser-Si3N4 interaction. In addition, both the FEM and the experimental model enabled the prediction of additional process parameters for future development of the laser surface treatment process for engineering ceramics.
Keywords: CO2 laser, fibre laser, engineering ceramic, surface treatment, temperature distribution, finite element model (FEM)