Thermal sensitivity analysis by use of an analytic solution for laser surface treatment

Abstract

In complex thermal material processes, it is essential to find the more effective processing parameters. Sensitivity is useful in estimating the effect of variation of individual parameters in mathematical models of interesting systems. By use of the analytical solution of the temperature analysis, a sensitivity analysis for laser surface treatment was established by the differentiation of the analytic solution with respect to the laser beam radius and beam scanning velocity. Both analytical and finite-difference gradients are employed to validate the effectiveness of the sensitivity analysis calculated in this work. This simple method can be applied to calculate the effectiveness of the processing parameters for a given condition. In addition, the results of sensitivity analysis imply a dominant influence of the laser beam size in the region of parameters used.