Modelling of laser heating with induction pre-heating and post-heating and its experimental verification

A novel prospective way of continuous surface heating of steel work-pieces by a laser beam is modelled. The process is supplemented with pre-heating and post-heating of the heated parts by a classic inductor in order to avoid unacceptably high temperature gradients and subsequent mechanical stresses in the processed material. Its continuous mathematical model is solved numerically in 3D in the hard-coupled formulation. The solution takes into account all important non-linearities (saturation curve of the hardened steel and temperature dependences of its physical properties). The methodology is illustrated with a typical example. Selected results of computation are verified experimentally.