Analysis of melt-through process of 1.07 μm continuous wave high power laser irradiation on metal

Laser-metal interactions are influenced by various parameters, including laser wavelength and laser pulse duration. By proper adjustments of these parameters, one can create states that manifest different phenomena during laser ablation. In this work, we study laser melt-through of metal using 1 kW high power continuous laser with 1.07 μm wave length. A Ytterbium (Yb) doped fiber laser is used on the metal sample of varying thicknesses (0.1 ~ 2 mm). In addition to providing measurements from the melt-through process, numerical study of thermal transport effect of laser heating and thermo-elastic response of metal are reported. The test-based simulation is shown to reproduce the thermal transport characteristics of beam-metal interaction at high power continuous wave irradiation with notable accuracy.