A study on the laser surface hardening of SM 45C steel

SM 45C강의 레이저 표면경화처리에 관한 연구

High power lasers provide a controllable and precise energy source in surface transformation hardening. A careful control of the process is needed in order that the surface layer of the material reaches the austenizing temperature, but that it does not melt. In order to achieve this the results of theoretical and experimental studies on the laser surface hardening of a medium carbon steel are described. A two-dimensional computer program, which can be used generally for the determination of transient temperature distributions in welding and heat treatment, was established on the basis of the finite element method. For the confirmation of the accuracy of the numerical analysis, a medium carbon steel (SM 45C) of 5mm thickness was heat-treated with a 1kW CW CO$_{2}$ laser machine, while the traverse speed and the distance from the focal point (defocused distance) were varied. Experimental and numerical results showed a similar tendency in correlations between the hardened zone shape and the process parameters. With increasing beam spot diameter the width and depth of the hardened zone increased for relatively small beam spot diameters, but decreased rapidly after reaching the maximum value, while with increasing traverse speed the width and depth of the hardened zone decreased monotonously. Too small beam spot diameters are to be avoided, since the surface melting would lower the surface hardness and produce an uneven surface which may be unacceptable because of the possible requirement for subsequent machining. It could be observed that for a given traverse speed and laser power input there exists a optimal range of the beam spot diameter, which produce a large width of the hardened zone but no melting on the surface.

본 논문에서는 1 KW CW CO$_{2}$레이저 발생자장치를 사용하여 표면경화 처리 를 행할때 공정과 관련된 변수들이 용접부 및 표면경화층에 미치는 영향들을 이론과 실험을 통해서 규명하고, 이 결과들을 실제공정에 사용할 수 있는 기초자료로서 제시 하고자 한다. 이를 위해서 해석에 사용될 수 있는 유한요소법(Finite Element Meth- od)에 근거한 2차원 열유동 해석용 프로그램 및 데이타 처리 프로그램을 개발하고, 중 탄소강에 레이저 표면처리를 수행하여 실험 및 이론해석의 결과를 비교 검토하였다. 비교 검토하여 그 설정기준을 고찰하였다.