This paper investigates the effect of the laser cutting parameters on the heat-affected zone, and on the boundary layer of stainless steel processing. A new analytical resolution based on the boundary layer theory is used to deduce the interaction effects of the cutting parameters on the above zones. The results revealed that, the laminar nitrogen assist gas has a negligible effect on the HAZ depth but it has a remarkable effect on the molten boundary layer. It is also noticed that the pressure gradient remains very small compared to the interface shearing and the conductive heat losses from the cutting zone towards the substrate is dominant compared to the convective heat losses towards the gas.
Laser cutting of thick metal workpieces requires the use of low operating speeds which, however, will have an influence on the cut quality following the used laser wavelength. In this study, we develop a model which takes into account the Fresnel coefficients in order to determine the local laser absorbed energy as a function of the beam incidence angle on the surface workpiece. The deposited laser energy occurs on the metal/air interface which evolution is tracked by the volume-of-fluid multiphase model. In the simulation, in order to find the difference between the patterns obtained on the kerf walls when different laser wavelengths are used, an important number of cells must be used at the regions of interest, which are characterized by high gradients, but a larger number of cells will have the consequence to complete the calculation with much less computer time consumption. Therefore, a gradient adaption method was implemented in order to control the number of cells, by multiplying or reducing them when it is necessary, depending on the importance of the temperature gradients. It was found out in our results that processing with higher wavelength (λCO2 = 10.6 μm) results in lower roughness on the kerf walls, compared to the surface quality obtained by using lower wavelength (λNd-YAG = 1.06 μm). A good accordance with the experimental observations is concluded.
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