Abstract
Laser structuring by remelting (WaveShape) is a manufacturing process for metal surfaces in which structures are generated without material removal. The structuring principle is based on the controlled motion of the three-phase line in the area of the solidification front. The contour of the solidification front is imprinted into the remelting track during the continuous solidification process. Typically, harmonic surface structures in the form of sinusoidal oscillations are generated by means of WaveShape with virtually no material loss. However, a significant shape deviation is often observed over a wide range of process parameters. In this study, it was found that much of the shape deviation is concentrated at a spatial wavelength equal to half the spatial wavelength used for structuring. Therefore, an approach to reduce the shape deviations was specifically investigated by superimposing a compensation signal on the harmonic structuring signal. In this approach, a compensation signal with half the spatial wavelength was varied in phase and amplitude and superimposed on the structuring signal. Amplitude and phase shift of the compensation signal were further investigated for selected laser beam diameters and spatial wavelengths. This demonstrated that a shape deviation of harmonic surface structures on titanium alloy Ti6Al4V could be reduced by up to 91% by means of an adapted compensation signal.
Highlights
Surface functionalization through surface topography adaption is applied in a variety of applications as, e.g., to control tribological properties [1], in biomedical applications [2], to improve wettability characteristics [3] or for bonding between different materials [4].Functionalization of a surface consists in adapting the surface properties
Researchers have various surface treatment methods at their disposal to adapt the surface properties. They can be divided into low-scale methods, where high-selectivity of the process is required, and large-scale methods, where a significant part of the area can be treated in the uniform manner (for example, sandblasting [7], electrical discharge machining (EDM) [8], or electrochemical etching [9])
By laser processing with the beam diameter d L, a molten pool is created on the metal surface, which moves along the scanning direction with a scan speed vscan
Summary
Surface functionalization through surface topography adaption is applied in a variety of applications as, e.g., to control tribological properties [1], in biomedical applications [2], to improve wettability characteristics [3] or for bonding between different materials [4]. Researchers have various surface treatment methods at their disposal to adapt the surface properties. They can be divided into low-scale methods, where high-selectivity of the process is required (e.g., micro-milling [5], electron beam processing [6], and various laser-based methods), and large-scale methods, where a significant part of the area can be treated in the uniform manner (for example, sandblasting [7], electrical discharge machining (EDM) [8], or electrochemical etching [9]). Despite a wide variety of processing purposes, surface treatment methods are mainly based on the removal of material up to Micromachines 2021, 12, 367. Laser-based material structuring technologies are often associated with laser ablation. Surface Texturing) [13], as well as scanning strategies, over a large area [14]
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