Comparative study of laser surface hardening of 50CrMo4 steel using continuous-wave laser and pulsed lasers with ms, ns, ps and fs pulse duration

Abstract

Laser surface hardening, used to achieve hardened surface without affecting bulk properties of steels, generally employs continuous-wave laser to do the job. The purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the use of different pulsed lasers for surface hardening of 50CrMo4 steel. A continuous-wave laser and various pulsed lasers with pulse duration ranging from fs to ms were used for the experiment. It was found that millisecond laser utilizing about 9 times lower power is as effective as continuous-wave laser for surface hardening. It produced an average surface hardness of ~719 HV (2.7 times higher than base material hardness) and ~200 µm hardened depth, which is comparable with continuous-wave laser hardening. Similarly, nanosecond laser could induce both surface hardening effect and material removal depending on the parameters used. However, a shallow hardened depth (of mere ~80 µm) was achieved compared to continuous-wave laser. Furthermore, femtosecond and picosecond lasers did not produce any observable surface hardening effect; instead they resulted in direct surface ablation.