Model heat source using actual distribution of laser power density for simulation of laser processing

The model of heat source (MHS) which reflects the thermal interaction between materials and laser during processing determines the accuracy of simulation results. To acquire desirable simulations results, although various modifications of heat sources in the aspect of absorption process of laser by materials have been purposed, the distribution of laser power density (DLPD) in MHS is still modeled theoretically. However, in the actual situations of laser processing, the DLPD is definitely different from the ideal models. So, it is indispensable to build MHS using actual DLPD to improve the accuracy of simulation results. Besides, an automatic modeling method will be benefit to simplify the tedious pre-processing of simulations. This paper presents a modeling method and corresponding algorithm to model heat source using measured DLPD. This algorithm automatically processes original data to get modeling parameters and provides a step MHS combining with absorption models. Simulations and experiments of heat transfer in steel plates irradiated by laser prove the mothed and the step MHS. Moreover, the investigations of laser induced thermal-crack propagation in glass highlight the signification of modeling heat source based on actual DLPD and demonstrate the enormous application of this method in the simulation of laser processing.