An approach to thermal modeling of laser polishing process

Polishing operation of die and molds represents up to 30% of the total manufacturing cost, since it is a high added value operation that is necessary carried out manually by qualified personnel. There are several alternatives to hand operations, such as abrasive automated methods operated by robots, ball burnishing or laser polishing process in order to reduce operation time and costs. The presented article proposes a laser based polishing operation which consists in the application of a laser beam in a very controlled way. The radiated energy melts a microscopic layer which flows and re-solidifies smoothing the topographic irregularities of the surface resulting in a reduction of the initial roughness. The article presents, in addition to some experimental results of laser polishing process, a thermal model developed based on the finite difference method. The model is able to take into account different types of lasers; in particular, simulations for a CO2 laser and a high power diode laser have been carried out. As the model gets the full map of temperatures in 3D, it is possible to predict the melted material layer thickness, which is a crucial parameter in the laser polishing process. Finally, two types of validation tests are presented: First, some tests measured by pyrometers on the test part surface. Secondly, the comparison of a series of metallographic analysis on W.-Nr.1.2379 tool steel, where the metallurgical changes caused by the laser radiation can be observed with the thermal field estimated by the model.