Computational mechanics of laser cladding process

Laser cladding process accompanies phase transformations through melting (on heating) and solidifying (on cooling), which is an irreversible thermodynamic process. Most of analyses on material processing by laser as a heat source have been conducted on models of neglecting the latent heat in the process just for the reason of simplification. In this study the previous important works are summarized. And to further investigate the effects of latent heat on laser cladding process, this study develops a program accommodating an algorithm for enforcing the latent heat to run with ABAQUS(TM). The simulation technique of this study is verified by direct comparison of the present prediction with experimental publications elsewhere; the numerical results agreed accurately with the experiments. As a result, it is found that more accurate conclusions come out when considering the latent heat in process analyses. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.