Neutron strain scanning of fibre and diode laser welds in stainless steel and Ti6Al4V

Fibre lasers provide an unprecedented combination of high beam quality, brightness and low cost. Fibre laser beams can provide an exceptionally high power density beam with a relatively large depth of focus. Compared to more established laser welding technologies such as diode laser welding, fibre laser welding produces exceptionally narrow weld beads. As with all types of welding, fibre laser welding produces residual stresses in the material forming and adjacent to the weld. The SALSA instrument at the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) has been used to make neutron diffraction measurements for both fibre and diode laser welded stainless steel 304 and Ti6Al4V. Clear diffraction peaks are obtained from stainless steel 304 and residual stress distributions are obtained. Little variation in residual stress distribution with welding parameters is seen. Ti6Al4V diffraction peaks are complicated by phase transformations on cooling. Transformed beta phase peaks in Ti6Al4V allow the extent of the heat affected zone to be determined

Fibre laser piercing of mild steel: the effects of power intensity, gas type and pressure

Laser piercing is used to generate a starting point for laser cutting. The pierced hole is normally larger than the kerf width, which means that it cannot lie on the cut line. An experimental program investigating the piercing process as a function of laser and assist gas parameters is presented. An Nd:YAG fibre laser with a maximum power of 2 kW was used in continuous wave mode to pierce holes in 2 mm thick mild steel. Oxygen and nitrogen were used as assist gases, with pressures ranging from 0.3 to 12 bar. The sizes, geometries and piercing time of the holes produced have been analysed. The pierced hole size decreases with increasing gas pressure and increasing laser power. Oxygen assist gas produced larger diameter holes than nitrogen. A new technique is presented which produces pierced holes no larger than the kerf with and would allow the pierced hole to lie on the cut line of the finished product – allowing better material usage. This uses an inclined jet of nitrogen when piercing prior to oxygen assisted cutting

The application of specific point energy analysis to laser cutting with 1 μm laser radiation

Specific point energy (SPE) is a concept that has been successfully used in laser welding where SPE and power density determine penetration depth. This type of analysis allows the welding characteristics of different laser systems to be directly compared. This paper investigates if the SPE concept can usefully be applied to laser cutting. In order to provide data for the analysis laser cutting of various thicknesses of mild steel with a 2kW fibre laser was carried out over a wide range of parameter combinations. It was found that the SPE concept is applicable to laser cutting within the range of parameters investigated here

The application of specific point energy analysis to laser cutting with 1 μm laser radiation

Specific point energy (SPE) is a concept that has been successfully used in laser welding where SPE and power density determine penetration depth. This type of analysis allows the welding characteristics of different laser systems to be directly compared. This paper investigates if the SPE concept can usefully be applied to laser cutting. In order to provide data for the analysis laser cutting of various thicknesses of mild steel with a 2kW fibre laser was carried out over a wide range of parameter combinations. It was found that the SPE concept is applicable to laser cutting within the range of parameters investigated here

Deepening subwavelength acoustic resonance via metamaterials with universal broadband elliptical microstructure

Slow sound is a frequently exploited phenomenon that metamaterials can induce in order to permit wave energy compression, redirection, imaging, sound absorption, and other special functionalities. Generally, however, such slow sound structures have a poor impedance match to air, particularly at low frequencies and consequently exhibit strong transmission only in narrow frequency ranges. This therefore strongly restricts their application in wave manipulation devices. In this work, we design a slow sound medium that halves the effective speed of sound in air over a wide range of low frequencies (hence our referral to the microstructure as “broadband”), whilst simultaneously maintaining a near impedance match to air. This is achieved with a rectangular array of acoustically rigid cylinders of elliptical cross section, a microstructure that is motivated by combining transformation acoustics with homogenization. Microstructural parameters are optimized in order to provide the required anisotropic material properties as well as near impedance matching. We then employ this microstructure in order to halve the size of a quarter-wavelength resonator (QWR) or equivalently to halve the resonant frequency of a QWR of a given size. This provides significant space savings in the context of low-frequency tonal noise attenuation in confined environments where the absorbing material is adjacent to the region in which sound propagates, such as in a duct. We employ the term “universal” since we envisage that this microstructure may be employed in a number of diverse applications involving sound manipulation.EPSRC Grant EP/K033208/I and EP/R014604/

The effect of laser transformation notching on the controlled fracture of a high carbon (C70S6 ) steel

A high carbon (C70S6) steel has been laser surface treated using CO2 and Diode lasers in order to produce an embrittled region to act as a fracture notch. Such a process has been investigated as a precursor to the fracture splitting of automotive engine connecting rods. Microstructures of the treated regions have been examined and the fracture behaviour of notched samples has been quantified. Depending on the laser processing parameters used, the laser transformation notch (LTN) undergoes either solid state transformations or a mixture of melting and solid state transformations. The effect of LTN depth on the peak impact force, the crack initiation energy and Charpy fracture energy was investigated on a C70S6 carbon steel using an instrumented Charpy impact facility. It was reduced to a value < 3.5 J by a LTN of ~ 0.5 mm in depth. Fracture mechanics models indicate that such a LTN can behave in a similar way to a fatigue created crack used in fracture toughness testing ie the LTN behaves as a sharp crack. Obtaining a sharp crack effect from a LTN is attributable to a combination of: a) the presence of brittle martensite, b) intergranular cracking of favourably oriented columnar grains after melting with inclusions and defects at their boundaries, c) intergranular cracking of coarse grains produced by a high austenitising temperatures and d) minor or major cracks sometimes resulting in centre – line cracking which arises during solidification. LTN was thus shown to have the potential to lead to an effective means of obtaining consistent fracture splitting of connecting rods

The application of specific point energy analysis to laser cutting with 1 μm laser radiation

Specific point energy (SPE) is a concept that has been successfully used in laser welding where SPE and power density determine penetration depth. This type of analysis allows the welding characteristics of different laser systems to be directly compared. This paper investigates if the SPE concept can usefully be applied to laser cutting. In order to provide data for the analysis laser cutting of various thicknesses of mild steel with a 2kW fibre laser was carried out over a wide range of parameter combinations. It was found that the SPE concept is applicable to laser cutting within the range of parameters investigated here

Neutron strain scanning of fibre and diode laser welds in stainless steel and Ti6Al4V

Fibre lasers provide an unprecedented combination of high beam quality, brightness and low cost. Fibre laser beams can provide an exceptionally high power density beam with a relatively large depth of focus. Compared to more established laser welding technologies such as diode laser welding, fibre laser welding produces exceptionally narrow weld beads. As with all types of welding, fibre laser welding produces residual stresses in the material forming and adjacent to the weld. The SALSA instrument at the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) has been used to make neutron diffraction measurements for both fibre and diode laser welded stainless steel 304 and Ti6Al4V. Clear diffraction peaks are obtained from stainless steel 304 and residual stress distributions are obtained. Little variation in residual stress distribution with welding parameters is seen. Ti6Al4V diffraction peaks are complicated by phase transformations on cooling. Transformed beta phase peaks in Ti6Al4V allow the extent of the heat affected zone to be determined

Heat affected zones and oxidation marks in fiber laser-oxygen cutting of mild steel

The effect of cutting speed and sheet thickness on surface oxidation and heat affected zones (HAZs) has been investigated for laser-oxygen cutting of mild steel sheet with a fiber laser. Optical and scanning electron micrographs were used to determine the extent of surface oxidation and HAZ from plan and cross-sectional views, respectively. The HAZ is consistently wider at the bottom of the cut compared to the HAZ at the top of the cut. With increasing speed, the width of the HAZ at the top of the cut decreases whereas the HAZ width at the bottom of the cut generally increases. No simple, direct relationship between HAZ width and surface oxidation was seen. However, it is possible to state that in each case considered here, the HAZ would be completely removed if they are machined back by a depth equal to the extent of the surface oxidation. (C) 2011 Laser Institute of America