Metal Additive Manufacturing has been recognized as a technology of the future providing numerous benefits such as the production of complex shape and lightweight parts, easy customization, design freedom, etc. However, there are many areas where metal additive manufacturing cannot be applied since the quality of produced parts still does not satisfy the requirements of high-demanding industries for the production of their critical parts. Recently, Laser Shock Peening (LSP) has been investigated as a post-processing technique in metal additive manufacturing, primarily for the improvement of fatigue behavior. Here we will present improvements in fatigue life, the analysis of microstructure, and all the benefits LSP can bring to Metal Additive Manufacturing, for two types of material; stainless steel AISI 304L and titanium alloy Ti6Al4V.
Recently, we published a novel design approach for unstable laser cavities that overcomes the limitation of such a design to high gain media and presented first results of a laboratory prototype [1]. Based on this, we developed a larger prototype system suitable for applications in laser shock peening featuring a relatively simple layout and a compact footprint of about 0.8x0.6m².
The presented laser is based on cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG ceramic equipped with a Cr:YAG absorber cladding to suppress amplified spontaneous emission. As the pump source we utilize a 7kW peak power laser diode module generating a high quality tophat beam with hexagonal lateral profile. With this the system achieves an output energy in excess of 1J in a 10ns to 20ns pulse in q-switch operation mode. The output beam profile adapts well to the hexagonal shape of the pump beam. The laser can be operated with up to 20Hz repetition rate limited only by the cooling capacity of the used cryostat.
The application of the system in laser shock peening (LSP) was tested by treating aluminum plates within a test setup. The treated area was then examined regarding residual stress to verify the success of the LSP process. It was found that significant residual stress was generated with a penetration depth of up to 0.6mm and a pressure of 200MPa at the surface.
[1] J. Körner, S. Zulić, D. Rostohar, A. Lucianetti, T. Mocek, “Novel unstable resonator configuration for highly efficient cryogenically cooled Yb: YAG Q-switched laser”, Optics Express, 27(15): 21622-21634, 2019
We present a novel approach to combine diode-pumped, moderately low-gain media with the advantages of an unstable cavity. To this end, we propose to utilize a spatially tailored gain profile in the active medium instead of using a graded reflectivity mirror to provide an eeffective shaping mechanism for the intra-cavity intensity distribution. The required gain profile can be easily generated with a state-of-the-art homogenized laser diode pump beam in an end-pumped configuration.
Around BIVOJ laser system, a new generation diode pump solid state laser (10-100J energy in 2-10 ns pulses with 10 Hz repetition frequency at 1030 nm) recently was developed a LSP experimental station. In this paper status and further developments of LSP facility at HiLASE Centre as well as further BIVOJ laser upgrades are presented. Residual stress curves representing preliminary results on treating Aluminum 7075 alloy will be also reported.
Recent development of a station dedicated to Laser Shock Peening around newly developed BIVOJ laser system is reported. We also describe further plans related to upgrade of the laser system itself as well as plans for establishment of a dedicated sample preparation and characterization lab.
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