Analyzing and Post-modelling the High Speed Images of a Wavy Laser Induced Boiling Front

Abstract The boiling front in laser materials processing like remote fusion cutting, keyhole welding or drilling can nowadays be recorded by high speed imaging. It was recently observed that bright waves flow down the front. Several complex physical mechanisms are associated with a stable laser-induced boiling front, like beam absorption, shadowing, heating, ablation pressure, fluid flow, etc. The evidence of dynamic phenomena from high speed imaging is closely linked to these phenomena. As a first step, the directly visible phenomena were classified and analyzed. This has led to the insight that the appearance of steady flow of the bright front peaks is a composition of many short flashing events of 20-50 μs duration, though composing a rather constant melt film flow downwards. Five geometrical front shapes of bright and dark domains were categorized, for example long inclined dark valleys. In addition, the special top and bottom regions of the front are distinguished. As a second step, a new method of post-modelling based on the greyscale variation of the images was applied, to approximately reconstruct the topology of the wavy front and subsequently to calculate the absorption across the front. Despite certain simplifications this kind of analysis provides a variety of additional information, including statistical analysis. In particular, the model could show the sensitivity of front waves to the formation of shadow domains and the robustness of fiber lasers to keep most of an irradiated steel surface in an absorptivity window between 35 to 43%.