Selection of the Optimal Parameters of the Process for Thermal Laser Treatment of Metals for Creating the Molten Pool with a Required Depth

In the paper we examine the problem of optimization of parameters of technological process for obtaining a molten pool with a needed depth on the surface of the metal sample under the thermal local laser treatment. A mathematical model of heat distribution during thermal laser treatment is simplified to a linear problem of heating a half-space, that can be used for plates of finite thickness. Despite a number of assumptions, this approach gives satisfactory qualitative and quantitative understanding of the heating stage. The accepted model allows us to control the quality criteria of the surface layer and, above all, its main feature – the depth of the molten pool by selecting the optimal parameters of laser radiation. To solve the optimization problem the algorithm based on the scanning method of the search space (the zero-order method of conditional optimization) has been built. The obtained results can be used both as preliminary recommendations for setting variable parameters of the real technological process and as prediction of phase and structural states of the irradiated material.