Mathematical modeling of temperature during laser forming using bimodal beam

An analytical and numerical solution is developed for a transient heat conduction equation in which a plane slab is heated by a bimodal distribution beam over the upper surface. In laser heat treatment of steel few methods are used to produce a wider and nearly uniform average irradiance profile. This may be achieved by a bimodal (TEM11) shaped laser beam. In this paper, Green function method is employed to derive an analytical solution for thermal field distribution induced by laser forming process. Then 3-D finite element modeling of a slab in the ANSYS code is used to model the thermal field of laser forming with bimodal beam distribution. The results show that bimodal beam is useful for obtaining a uniform heat intensity distribution.