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Modelling hybrid plasma-laser processes and integrated plasmatrons

The rate of development of hybrid methods of welding, cutting, and surface modification has recently accelerated as a result of using interactive systems in which beams of laser and arc radiation, including the plasma arc, are focussed on a metallic element. In the majority of these processes, both sources of heat energy act on the same area of the target element. Heating of the metal by the electric arc raises its temperature and thus increases the degree of effectiveness of the absorption of laser radiation. As a result of this, the efficiency of the laser process is enhanced; a fact of particular importance where low-powered lasers are concerned. On the one hand, laser-arc processing ensures space stability of the active arc spot since the arc plasma is located in the zone in which the plasma beam (when using a laser system) is generated. This increases the stability of arcing at low intensities of the current, and at high velocities of the arc displacement with reference to the element and, therefore, significantly improves the efficiency of the arc and/or that of other welding processes. When the laser beam penetrates the arc column, then, in addition to the above mentioned phenomena occurring on the surface of the processed material, a change in the total energy balance of the arc’s discharge will occur. This is the consequence of the additional energy release and absorption by the arc plasma of the laser radiation. If the power supplied to the arc by the laser radiation is comparable to that of the electric arc, a specific type of discharge in the gas atmosphere, i.e. a combined laser arc discharge (in type, somewhere between the arc and optical) takes place. The general and local plasma characteristics of this type of discharge differ, to a significant degree, from the corresponding characteristics of the original arc plasma. The characteristics of the laser beam are also considerably affected by the absorption and refraction of the laser radiation within the arc plasma. It follows, therefore, that the energy supplied to the element either during welding, or during some other hybrid processing, is not simply the sum of the individual contributions of the sources of arc and laser heat. Consequently, a general analysis of hybrid technologies is impossible without mathematical modelling of the processes incorporating the effect of both the laser beam and the electric-arc plasma. This is one of the main objectives of the work reported in this article. Interaction of the laser beam with the electric-arc plasma: arc-augmented laser discharge