Continuous Wave Diode Laser Surface Texturing of Austenitic and Pearlitic Steels

Sulthan Mohiddin Shariff^1*, Suresh Koppoju¹, Tapan Kumar Pal², Padmanabham Gadhe¹, Shrikant Viswanath Joshi¹

¹International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad, India.
²Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

DOI: 10.4236/msa.2015.610091                

Abstract

Microstructuring of steel resulting in directional solidification and texturing, previously observed in various metallic materials during pulsed laser processing, melt-spinning, high-gradient liquid metal melting, zone melting etc., is reported for the first time in continuous wave diode laser processing of steels. Influence of laser interaction time on surface morphology/topology of austenitic manganese and pearlitic steels is investigated utilizing a wide rectangular multi-mode diode laser beam. X-ray diffraction analysis of the laser treated austenitic steel surface showed strong texturing influence, with preferred crystallographic orientation of γ-Fe crystals in the (200) plane, which increased with interaction time. In case of pearlitic steel, no such texturing influence could be observed. The free surface topologies were also observed to be different in each case, with well-aligned domes of γ-Fe observed in laser treated austenitic steel as compared to randomly oriented fine domes of metal oxides in pearlitic one. In situ surface temperature measurement during laser irradiation indicated higher temperature on pearlitic steel than in austenitic manganese steel owing to its lower effective thermal conductivity associated with higher oxide film formation.

Keywords

Diode Laser, Texturing; Pearlitic Steel, Austenitic Manganese Steel, Directional Solidification, Oxidation, Surface Morphology, Surface Topology

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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