Microstructure, hardness and stress in melted zone of 42CrMo steel by wide-band laser surface melting

Using laser surface melting (LSM) of a roller, to obtain the desired distribution of the microstructure, hardness and residual stresses with minimum distortion, is essential in order to improve machining efficiency and to achieve reliable service performance. In this study, a 3D finite element model has been developed to simulate the wide-band LSM process and predict the thermal and mechanical properties in the melted zone. The microstructure evolution, hardness distribution and stress field in the melted zone with different laser power were simulated. With the increase of the laser power from 3000 to 3800 W, the width and the depth of the laser melted layer increase, while the laser power has a little effect on the martensite contents, which exceed 90% in the melt-hardened zone. It greatly affects the mechanical properties in the melt-hardened zone with its volumetric expansion effect and the hardness increases by 2-3 times. The residual stress distributed within the melt-hardened zone is always of the compressive type. The amplitude of compressive stress exists in the transition region, and the amplitude of von Mises stress within the heat affected-zone (HAZ) decreases with the increase in laser power. The accuracy of the developed finite element simulation strategy is validated for phase proportion and hardness distributions through the wide-band LSM on roller steel with proper instrumentation for data measurement. This agreement is encouraging. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.