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Effect of pulse duration on heat transfer and solidification development in laser-melt magnesium alloy

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Abstract

Compared to CW CO2 laser, Nd:YAG pulse laser is more suitable for some material processing due to higher absorptivity. However, surface ripples and microstructure inhomogeneities are main disadvantages during pulse laser melting on materials. Experiments were carried out to examine how laser melting influences surface topography and microstructure development of AZ91D Mg alloy. The laser-melt surface was characterized using Talysurf profiler, optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. Temperature distribution of molten pool was calculated from heat flow model to understand how heat transfer and fluid flow influence kinetics of rapid solidification under non-equilibrium conditions. The results implicate solidification behavior on microstructure evolution of laser-melt materials. At optimized parameters, thermally driven Marangoni flow became uniform, resulting in low height of ripples on top surface and less discrete bands in cross-sectional microstructure simultaneously, thereby improving homogeneity of microstructure in the molten pool.

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Acknowledgments

Supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities from Beihang University with project code 30418401, A*STAR Remanufacturing Programme with project code U11-M-030AU, and Ph.D. Scholarship of Nanyang Technological University are gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Mr Tan Chi Wai and Mr Teh Kim Ming from SIMTech for their advice and assistance with this project.

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Correspondence to Yingchun Guan.

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Guan, Y., Zhou, W., Zheng, H. et al. Effect of pulse duration on heat transfer and solidification development in laser-melt magnesium alloy. Appl. Phys. A 119, 437–442 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9105-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9105-4

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